English biography

The Channels of English Literature

ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

The Channels of English Literature

Edited by OLIPHANT SMKATON, M.A.

ENGLISH EPIC AND HEROIC POETRY.
By Professor W. MACNEILE DIXON, M.A.,
University of Glasgow.

ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY.
By ERNEST RHYS.

THE ENGLISH DRAMA.

By Professor F. E. SCHELLING, Litt.D.,
University of Pennsylvania.

ENGLISH PHILOSOPHERS AND SCHOOLS
OF PHILOSOPHY.

By Professor JAMES SETH, M.A., University
of Edinburgh.

THE ENGLISH ESSAY AND ESSAYISTS.
By Professor HUGH WALKER, LL.D. f St.
David's College, Lampeter.

THE ENGLISH NOVEL.

By Professor GEORGE SAINTSBURY, D.Litt.,
University of Edinburgh.

ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY.

By Professor WALDO H. DUNN, Litt.D., The
College of Wooster, U.S.A.

ENGLISH ELEGIAC, DIDACTIC, AND
RELIGIOUS POETRY.

By the Very Rev. H. C. BEECHING, D.D.,
D.Litt., Dean of Norwich, and the Rev.
RONALD BAYNE, M.A.

ENGLISH HISTORIANS AND SCHOOLS
OF HISTORY.

By Professor RICHARD LODGE, University
of Edinburgh.

ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

BY

WALDO H. DUNN, M.A.,Lrrr.D.

PROFESSOR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

IN THE COLLEGE OF WOOSTER, U.S.A.

LONDON, PARIS, AND TORONTO

J. M. DENT & SONS LIMITED
NEW YORK : E. P. DUTTON & CO.

1916

DS

All rights reserved

So
F. G. D.

PATIENT, STEADFAST, LOYAL
COMRADE IN THE QUEST

PREFACE

IN harmony with the common purpose of the other volumes
which belong to this series, I have made an attempt to
trace the genesis and evolution of English biography, and
to furnish those who may care to devote themselves to a
further study of the subject with sufficient materials in
the way of references to sources to enable them to make
at least a beginning toward the accomplishment of their
desire. I believe I am right in saying that this is the first
book in the English language devoted to a careful and
somewhat exhaustive study of the subject. So far as I
know, it is the first of its kind in any language. Beyond
brief articles in encyclopaedias and magazines, reviews of
biographies in periodicals, and a few short treatises, the
great subject of biography has remained untouched.

No one can be more conscious than myself of the limita
tions of the discussion herewith presented. I feel that I
have made only a beginning in a work that is sure to be
continued. Biography as an Art; Biography as Litera
ture; Biography in its Relations to History, Fiction,
Psychology, and Medical Science; The Use of Letters in
Biography all these subjects, and more besides, will some
day be adequately treated. They can be only hinted at,
or touched upon briefly, in a book of this kind. Yet, again,
the whole question of a bibliography of biography remains.
The lists herewith given in the appendix are not meant
to be complete; they but illustrate certain portions of
the main text, and are intended to be only suggestive.
There is great need of an approximately complete biblio-

vii b

viii ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

graphy of the subject which will enumerate and evaluate,
for the student and the general reader, the really worth
while works. Some one may perform a real service to
students by preparing a complete list and a critical dis
cussion of the short lives and memoirs of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries. The preparation of such biblio
graphies will be the work of years, but I have no doubt
that it will some day be accomplished.

I have met with much encouragement in the prosecution
of this work, and owe a large debt of gratitude to many.
The Rev. Thomas Davidson, Nevill Forbes, M.A., Reader
in Russian at Oxford University, M. Jules Jusserand,
French Ambassador to the United States of America, and
Robert S. Rait, M.A., Professor of Scottish History and
Literature in the University of Glasgow, have kindly
furnished information, and helped me by way of suggestion
in forming critical and comparative estimates. Sir Sidney
Lee has likewise kindly directed me to useful information,
has allowed me to quote from his writings on biography,
and has otherwise personally encouraged me. Hugh
Walker, LL.D., Professor of English in St. David's College,
Lampeter, was good enough to read a portion of the work
in manuscript. My friend and colleague, Walter Edwin
Peck, M.A., Assistant Professor of Rhetoric and English
Composition in The College of Wooster, has followed the
whole work with great interest, and has gone over it all
in proof. Mrs. Anna Robeson Burr, of Philadelphia, whose
valuable studies in autobiography have rendered my task
much easier, has not only allowed me to draw freely upon
her work, but has also furnished specific aid and suggestions.
Upon none of these, however, should the blame for any of
the shortcomings of this book be charged. As it stands,
I alone am responsible for the matter which it contains
and for the manner in which all has been presented.

PREFACE ix

It was my great privilege to be associated during the
entire period in which I was engaged upon this work with
W. Macneile Dixon, Litt.D., Professor of English Litera
ture in the University of Glasgow. The example of his
high scholarship " lightly borne," together with the self-
effacing kindness of true culture, has been an inspiration
to me. He has never failed to have " a heart at leisure
from itself " sufficiently to permit him to sympathise with
the most trivial interests of my every-day life.

To the Court and the Senate of the University of Glasgow
I owe thanks for privileges accorded me during the two
years which I spent as a Research Student in that institu
tion. Within the hospitable gates of that ancient seat of
learning, and in connexion with the department of English
Literature, the most of this work was prosecuted. For
many courtesies, I wish to thank the officials of the Library
of the University of Glasgow, the Mitchell Library, Glasgow,
the Bodleian Library, Oxford University, and the Advo
cates' Library, Edinburgh. To The College of Wooster I
am deeply indebted for the gift of the time during which
this study was carried on.

WALDO H. DUNN.

DUNOON, SCOTLAND.
June 1916.

INTRODUCTION

DOUBTLESS, few people have ever taken the trouble to
put the definite query, What is biography? Fewer still,
perhaps, have ever attempted to formulate an answer to
what seems so easy a question. When we do seek for
enlightenment, no host of critics can be summoned to our
aid as in the case of such other forms of literature as
poetry and prose fiction; for, as yet, biography has not.
been made to any great extent the subject of critical
analysis and discussion. Such criticism as exists is scattered
chiefly throughout reviews often hastily and perfunctorily
written or is contained in a few remarks now and then
made by biographers in the course of their narratives.
Evidently, it has been generally taken for granted that
every one knows what biography is.

It is true that definitions are usually unsatisfactory,
and that most of us get along very well in using words
which we should be puzzled to define logically. Yet not
for this reason should the process of defining be set aside
as useless, or unnecessary : attempts at definition are help
ful in clarifying thought-processes, and the results are, at
least, suggestive, affording points of departure for further
discussion. We may see how needful is the attempt in the
present instance by the briefest glance at what have usually
passed for definitions of biography. Plutarch set before
himself the task of " writing the lives of famous persons"
of " comparing the lives of the greatest men with one another"
No further thought of expressing more definitely what is
meant by lives seems to have occurred to any one until
John Dryden, in 1683, introduced the word biography into

xii ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

the English language and declared it to be " the history of
particular men's lives."

To say that biography is the history of one man's life
is, at least, to be clear and succinct, but the definition is
no more than a beginning of the expository process. It
is easy enough to say that the history of a man's life
constitutes his biography; it is not so easy to declare
what should go to make up the history; still less easy to
say just what is meant by the life of which the history is
to treat. What do we mean when we speak of the life of a
man? The expression is common, and every one knows,
or thinks that he knows, what the term means. It is
clear that notions have differed widely in the past, just
as they differ widely in the present. Xenophon believed
that he was giving to the world the story of Socrates' life
no less truly than Adamnan thought he was presenting
before the eyes of his readers " an image of the holy life "
of Columba. How different was the ideal of Samuel Parr
from that of James Boswell as to what should present the
history of the life of Samuel Johnson. Different notions
in the minds of the writers were certainly responsible for
the different methods employed by Thomas Carlyle in his
Life of Sterling, by J. W. Cross in his Life of George Eliot,
and by Horace Traubel in his With Walt Whitman in
Camden. Thomas Jefferson Hogg and Edward J. Trelawny
had the opportunity to do for Shelley what Carlyle did for
John Sterling: one has simply to taste of their work to
see how far removed it is from that of Carlyle, to recognise
that it is scarcely comparable to the Life of Sterling. One
can hardly doubt, however, that both Hogg and Trelawny
were as desirous as was Carlyle of presenting the life of a
man. It is evident that we need to expand the brief defini
tion somewhat fully that we may have a standard to which
to refer for purposes of evaluation and comparison.

INTRODUCTION xiii

Biography is, fundamentally, the offspring of an inherent
and deep-seated desire in man to perpetuate the memory
of a life. Go backward as far as we may into the history
of the subject, the underlying purpose is always the same
that of memorial. Some one has lived who, by the power
of his spirit or the greatness of his achievement, has im
pressed his fellow-men; they, unwilling that his spirit and
achievement should perish even as his body perished, have
undertaken to produce some kind of lasting memorial.
From rude heaps of stones collected to mark graves, such
memorials have become elaborate monuments or magnifi
cent temples upon which have been inscribed brief records
of those in whose honour they were constructed. Or some
man, impressed by his own spirit and achievement, and
unwilling that all memory of his journey through life
should pass away, has taken care to set up for himself a
lofty obelisk or a towering pyramid to defy the power of
" Time's fell hand." No stretch of imagination is required
to see the close connexion between such memorials and
the written documents, the books, of later ages. As man
came to understand that the written and the printed word
endured longer than marble and bronze he forthwith
became author rather than architect. Whatever the
medium employed, however, the primary purpose of life-
record has always been memorial.

The simple memorial-record soon developed into some
thing more elaborate. Such early written documents as
have been preserved enable us to follow the probable
stages by which life-narrative has developed. Written
first to perpetuate the memory of one who had for some
reason excelled his fellows, the memorial seemed to gain
in value as something of definite achievement was in
corporated into the record. To primitive men, deeds were
more impressive than the hidden spirit of which deeds are

ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

only the outward manifestation; and to them, great deeds
were of more dignity than the small acts of every-day life.
The great deeds of great men are, in retrospect, always
prone to seem greater. The memorial, therefore, developed
into a narrative, a history usually panegyric in character
of the outward great events in the life of a great man.
When a writer happened not to approve of the great man's
life, it was an easy matter to transform panegyric into
diatribe. By one road or the other, then, the narrative
came to serve an ethical purpose. It was easy, also, for the
man to be almost forgotten in the course of the narrative
of the events in which he participated: the memorial life-
record became transformed into history. Again, it became
a custom to arrange great men into groups, and thus the
individual was well-nigh lost in the aggregate. The clear
recognition of the individual, and of the inner spirit the
soul as the source and mainspring of outward action; in
short, the conception of life-narrative as portrayal of
character, came at a comparatively late period in the
history of mankind.

In the following pages it is assumed that a true biography
is the narrative, from birth to death, of one man's life in
its outward manifestations and inward workings. The aims
of such a true biography in its simplest form would there
fore include a record of facts combined with some portrayal
of character. In proportion as such a work approximates
the complete fulfilment of these aims in all their legitimate
ramifications, it approaches the ideal type; that is, an
ideal biography would exhibit the external life of the sub-

^ject, give a vivid picture of his character, and unfold the
growth of his mind. In this volume, the ideal type has been
adopted as the standard, the test by which all products of
biography herein mentioned have been judged. Biography
may be said to develop, therefore, in proportion to the

INTRODUCTION xv

degree of accuracy attained in the presentation of mere
facts; the measure of its detachment from panegyric, or
other didactic intention; and the extent to which it recog
nises truth of character portrayal as its first duty. The
general process of evolution towards such an ideal has been
slow, and in this order: biographers have first groped
towards portrayal of character; then, by forsaking the
ethical or didactic intention, have striven for truth in such
portrayal; and, last of all, have insisted upon accuracy in
matters of fact. It need be no cause for wonder that
insistence upon accuracy of fact has come last. Biography,
as a kind of literary history, has followed the course of
history in general, and it is only in modern times that
strict scientific methods have been applied to historical
composition.

It was long the custom of biographers to write simply
about a man, to produce a narrative that contained little
of the subject's own personality. Progress towards the
ideal type began when writers turned to a use of what
may be termed instruments of development. These instru
ments or aids were such as proceeded directly from the
subject of biography himself, and consist chiefly of two
kinds: written documents and conversation. Letters, ia
particular, have come to be recognised as among the most
effective aids letters which are not mere impersonal
documents, but letters redolent of personality, letters
which reveal the inner spirit, such as those which Sprat
refused to employ in his Life of Cowley, and which Mason
wisely admitted into the Life of Gray. It would indeed
be interesting to consider fully the development of letters
as a vehicle of self-expression, to set forth some compara
tive estimate of the extent to which the biographers of
the world have used them as aids to biography; but the
task is beyond the scope of this work. The use of mere

xvi ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

impersonal letters is not, of course, peculiar to English
biography; in fact, the custom was adopted from outside
Britain. Yet, undoubtedly, the clear recognition of the
value of what may be called the intimate letter as a means
of character portrayal in biography is due to English
writers ; and a somewhat exhaustive, though not complete,
comparison reveals that the English have used letters for
such a purpose in greater numbers and to better advantage
than have the biographers of any other nation.

We have now set forth what should constitute the ideal
biography. It is clear that such a work would be pure
biography ; that is, in unfolding the life-narrative in
exhibiting the external life, in giving a vivid picture of
character, and in delineating growth of mind it would
so subordinate all else such as the exposition of events,
references to other persons, and critical discussions of work
accomplished by the subject as to cause no distraction
whatever to the mind of the reader. All the attention
would be focused upon the subject: for the purposes of
such a work, the subject would stand, for the time being,
in the centre of things; other persons, all events, all work
accomplished, would be explicable and would need explana
tion only in so far as they were immediately connected
with him. The Rev. Edward Edwards, in writing his Life
of Raleigh, had in mind the production of pure biography.
When writers succeed in producing such pure life-narrative,
history proper will be definitely and finally separated from
biography. So difficult are the problems involved, however,
that pure biography is likely always to remain only an ideal
towards which to strive ; but the ideal should never be lost
sight of.

Autobiography differs from biography in that it is a
life-narrative written by the subject himself, and cannot
therefore attain the organic and artistic completeness which

INTRODUCTION xvii

we have come to associate with a record written by another.
It must always come to a close before the life of the writer.
Nevertheless, the true autobiography is, in other respects,
similar to the true biography, and must exhibit like aims.
Similarly, also, it approaches the ideal as it approximates
the qualities already enumerated in the discussion of the
ideal biography. Of recent years notably since the begin
ning of the nineteenth century autobiography has come
to be regarded as a distinct literary form with charac
teristics and requirements peculiar to itself. It is indeed
closely related to what in general we call biography, yet
it is definitely separated from it. Its independence within
its own realm is secure and permanent.

To make the intent of certain statements in this volume
clear beyond question, and to avoid misapprehension on
the part of the reader, a few preliminary remarks may not
be out of place. Before the time of Izaak Walton, biography
in Britain may justly be spoken of as incidental; that
is, there were none who may be termed professional
biographers. Either the authors turned from their usual
employments to write a single memorial composition, or,
in treating of historical events, they incidentally produced
something that only approximated biography. It ic true
that Walton, in the first place, began his work almost by
accident, and largely by way of memorial; he soon, how
ever, became a biographer by deliberate intention. Hence
we are justified in thinking of him as the first deliberate
biographer in English, as the first to pass from the pro
duction of a single work to the project of completing a
series of individual lives. In this sense, he may be said to
stand alone to be a pioneer. There were, it must be
admitted, a few biographers whose work plainly fore-

xviii ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

shadows that of Walton, just as there were voyagers and
explorers before Columbus. In the department of eccle
siastical biography, especially, one thinks of Lawrence
Humphrey's Life and Death of John Jewell, Bishop of
Salisbury, published in 1573; of Sir George Paule's truly
pleasing Life of John Whitgift, Archbishop of Canterbury,
1612; and of Bishop George Carleton's Life of Bernard
Gilpin, 1628. Of these biographers, both Humphrey and
Carleton wrote in Latin; Paule, however, may stand as
clearly a forerunner of the promise later fulfilled in Walton:
the Life of Whitgift is worthy of mention along with any
of the Walton biographies. The separate works of the
men just enumerated are scarcely comparable, however,
to the biographical labours of the author of The Compleat
Angler. Walton marks not only the distinction between
incidental and deliberate biography, but also the beginning
of true artistic biography deliberately undertaken. He
gathered into himself such scattered impulses as were
exhibited by Roper, Cavendish, Humphrey, Paule, Carleton,,
andothers,and gave them definitepurpose and artistic expres
sion. His work was both a culmination and an innovation.
There seems, likewise, no reason to doubt that the
influence of Roper and Cavendish upon the general develop
ment of biography was exceedingly small until well towards
the nineteenth century. Where it can be traced before
that time it appears principally as a source of history, or
as a literary influence in connexion with Storer and
Shakespeare. It would be going too far to say that their
work had no direct influence upon the course of true
biography before the nineteenth century; it seems clear,
however, that the influence is almost negligible. Could
these works only have been printed earlier and circulated
extensively, the development of intimate, artistic biography
might have been greatly accelerated.

INTRODUCTION xbt

In treating so large a subject in a space so brief, it can
scarcely be hoped that a true sense of proportion has, in
every case, been exhibited. It has been necessary to leave
unmentioned, as not coming within the direct scope of
this work, many biographies which of themselves are
interesting and important. Likewise, it has not been
possible to do complete justice to any single biography.
In many instances, particular works could have much
more said for them; are worthy, in fact, of detailed treat
ment. Thus, Adamnan's Life of St. Columba does more
than abound in the miraculous and merely summarise
Columba's character. As the reader may find out for
himself, it reveals even if indirectly many subtile traits
in the character of the first Abbot of lona. Other topics
treated in the course of the book may seem to be over
emphasised; in particular, the space devoted to verse lives
and to the discussion of " Characters " may appear out of
proportion. I have run the risk of over-emphasis in these
directions. To be sure, verse lives of saints are well-nigh
negligible in treating solely of the evolution of biography,
but not in writing a history of the form: we need to
remember the place which they filled; we need to bear in
mind that for centuries while the development of prose
biography remained in abeyance they were the chief
manifestation of the biographical spirit, and furnished the
principal source of general reading. The average reader
has a right to ask for somewhat detailed information in
regard to these saints' lives, as well as to be shown why
they have little connexion with the subsequent develop
ment of biography. Ike Mirror for Magistrates, as the
continuation, the legitimate successor of saints* lives,
cannot, for the same reason, be passed over. It is full of
biographical details, and no doubt is a connecting link
between the prose work of Cavendish and the one great

xx ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

verse life, Storer's Wolsey. The " Characters " are the
children of the biographical spirit. That critics have found
it necessary to point out that they are not important
factors in the development of biography is perhaps suffi
cient reason for making it clear in these pages just what
relation they bear to the subject in hand. Other forms of
literature, in particular the drama, are also related to
biography in so far as they mark the growing interest in
human life, in individuals. These other forms, however,
have not been thought of as so closely related to biography
as the " Characters " have been.

One topic I have touched briefly the influence of
Plutarch and the other classical biographers. I feel that
for the purposes of this volume such brevity is not a
mistake. When we say that Plutarch, as the " prince of
ancient biographers," was at once an example and a
stimulus to English biographers, that he made statements
so suggestive as to need only amplification and illustration,
we have said all, perhaps, that is necessary. Without
doubt, the influence of classical biography upon English
has been great in many subtile ways : to trace these hidden
and often shadowy influences is no part of the purpose of
this book.

The chapter divisions herein followed have made neces
sary a certain amount of repetition, not enough, it is hoped,
to be wearisome. Whether biography preceded auto
biography, or v ice versa, is an unsettled point. It is true,
at any rate, that autobiography did not assume an im
portant place in English until the latter part of the
eighteenth century, and in this fact we find justification
for deferring the treatment of autobiography until Chapter
VI. With this much clearing of the way, we may proceed
to the actual discussion of the subject in hand.

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE

I. BEGINNINGS OF THE BIOGRAPHICAL IMPULSE: LATIN

PERIOD (690-1066 A.D.) ..... i

II. THE PERIOD OF TRANSITION AND PREPARATION (1066-

1500) .19

III. ENGLISH VERSE LIVES 29

IV. THE PERIOD OF NEW BEGINNINGS IN ENGLISH

(1500-1700) ....... 46

V. THE RISE OF MODERN ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY THE

EIGHTEENTH CENTURY . . . . .81

VI. THE RISE OF ENGLISH AUTOBIOGRAPHY (720-1799) . 130

VII. BIOGRAPHY IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY . .157

VIII. AUTOBIOGRAPHY IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY . 200

IX. PROBLEMS AND TENDENCIES OF THE PRESENT . -213

X. A COMPARATIVE VIEW 236

XI. ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY AS LITERATURE . . . 264
XII. IN CONCLUSION ....... 278

APPENDIX 287

INDEX 311

xxi

ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

CHAPTER I

BEGINNINGS OF THE BIOGRAPHICAL IMPULSE I LATIN
PERIOD (690-1066 A.D.)

BIOGRAPHY was for long, and to a certain extent yet is,
the handmaiden of both history and literature. For cen
turies it was recognised simply as a department of history,
and, as life-history, was never considered a distinct species
of composition governed by laws of its own. Later, when
there arose an interest in writers as differentiated from
their writings, biography was called to the aid of literature.
Still later not certainly and surely until the nineteenth
century it assumed its rightful place as a dignified de
partment of English literature. Thus it is that biography
has a two-fold claim to rank in the realm of letters. As the
handmaiden of literature for there can be no considera
tion of the products of authorship as apart from the
authors it must ever claim a share in literary triumphs;
and, as a unified, coherent, artistic creation, it has assumed,
and is destined in a far greater degree to assume, a high
rank in the annals of literature. It will be the purpose of
this volume to trace the slow, retarded evolution of bio
graphy in the British Islands, from its earliest manifesta
tions in a foreign tongue to the rich and full if not always
or often excellent culmination in the now widely diffused
English language.

The beginnings of biography in the British Isles are

A

2 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

bound up with the history of the Christian Church. It is
not strange that this should be the case; for, during a
period of many centuries, the Church was the focal point of
history, from which emanated most of the statesmanship
and scholarship of the times. These beginnings they can
be called little more than impulses to biography take us
back to a primitive period in the mind-development of the
inhabitants of Britain; to an age of wonder and credulity;
to an age when the Church, and things pertaining to the
Church, were uppermost in the minds of the educated. It
was an age over which the only appreciable literary influ
ence was that of the Scriptures and Commentaries thereon.
For such germs of biography as the period affords we must
go for the most part to the narratives of the lives and
miracles of saints, or to the works of the chroniclers and
historians. Sir Thomas Duffus Hardy in the first two parts
(vol. i.) of the Descriptive Catalogue of Materials relating to
the History of Great Britain and Ireland gives a list of 1 277
works, most of which treat of lives and miracles of saints. 1
Not until 893, when Asser wrote the Life of King Alfred, do
we have the life record of a layman.

These early records were written in Latin, and, for this
reason, have an historical rather than a direct, linguistic
relation to the later development of English biography.
Latin, however, long continued to be the language of
English writers; hence, a consideration of the subject pro
perly begins with this period. From the great mass of
material concerning much of which there is confusion 2 as

1 " In studying the Lives of the Saints which have come to us
from very early ages in the Church down to quite modern times,
we must remember that for centuries they filled a place in literature
which is now filled quite otherwise. They were the novels of all
ranks of society." Alfred Plummer, The Churches in Britain Before
A.D. 1000, vol. i. p. 73.

The following excerpts from Sir T. D. Hardy, Descriptive
Catalogue, vol. i. part i., are important: " The materials for our

BIOGRAPHICAL IMPULSE 3

to date and authenticity it is necessary, for our purpose,
to select only a few. While these few belong chiefly to the
domain of history, it is yet necessary at least to name
several of the most important out-croppings of the bio
graphical impulse, to mention their chief characteristics,
and to set forth such development as they evidence; as
well as to say something of their historical value to bio
graphers of a later period.

First in point of time comes Adamnan's Life of St.
Columba, written somewhere between 690 and 700 A.D.
Adamnan, an Irish saint and historian, was in 697 elected
ninth abbot of lona, and thus became the biographer of the
first abbot, Columba. Three characteristics at once attract
the attention of a reader of this memoir: the brevity of the
directly biographical portion; the great preponderance of
the miraculous element; and the insistence upon the moral
of a good life. The work is not at all chiefly biographical,
nor is it largely historical; it is hagiology. The part of it
which is biographical is reduced to the smallest compass,
yet it is in this part that we recognise Columba, the man;
it is in this part that we recognise the germ of biography
if not in the English language, at least in the British Isles.

history during the first five centuries (which may properly be called
the British period) must be sought for. and are to be found only, in
the works of the classical and Byzantine writers, in coins and
monumental inscriptions, in the record of oral traditions, in the
writings of Gildas and Nennius, and in the lives of the saints. . . .
[The age] was fruitful in biography. Libraries abound with memoirs
or lives of eminent scholars or ecclesiastics of the period, many of
them written by the contemporaries of the persons celebrated, and
valuable as containing facts and incidents recorded on personal
knowledge, or anecdotes obtained from oral testimony" (p. xii).
" If possible, this source of modern history is beset with more
difficulty and is more perplexing to the critic than all the confusions
and interpolations which arrest his progress in dealing with the
Chronicles " (p. xvii). " So lives of saints come down to us, like all
mediaeval works, the result of many hands the complex and
intricate growth of different times, and wrought together for different
purposes" (p. xx).

4 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

" I shall in the first place," says Adamnan, " as briefly as
I can, give a general summary, and place before my reader's
eyes an image of his holy life." Here is the portion:

" St. Columba, then, was born of noble parents ; his father was
Fedilmith, son of Fergus, and his mother was Aethne, whose father
can be called in Latin Filius Navis, but in the Scotic tongue MacNave.
In the second year after the battle of Culedbrina, and in the forty-
second of his age, St. Columba, resolving to seek a foreign country
for the love of Christ, sailed from Scotia x to Britain. From his
boyhood he had been brought up in Christian training in the study
of wisdom, and by the grace of God had so preserved the integrity
of his body, and the purity of his soul, that though dwelling on
earth he appeared to live like the saints in heaven. For he was
angelic in appearance, graceful in speech, holy in work, with talents
of the highest order, and consummate prudence; he lived a soldier
of Christ during thirty-four years in an island. He never could spend
the space of even one hour without study, or prayer, or writing, or
some other holy occupation. So incessantly was he engaged night
and day in the unwearied exercise of fasting and watching, that the
burden of each of these austerities would seem beyond the power of
all human endurance. And still in all these he was beloved by all,
for a holy joy ever beaming on his face revealed the joy and gladness
with which the Holy Spirit filled his inmost soul." *

In the closing paragraph of the memoir the moral of a
good life is drawn the purpose, perhaps, for which
Adamnan wrote :

" After reading these three books, let the diligent reader observe
of what and how great merit, of what and how high honour in the
sight of God our holy and venerable abbot must have been deemed
worthy . . . ; and how, even after the departure of his most kindly
soul from the tabernacle of the body, until the present day, the place
where his sacred bones repose . . . doth not cease to be frequently
visited by the holy angels, and illumined by the same heavenly
brightness. . . . This great and honourable celebrity [the spread
of his fame even to Rome, ' the head of all cities '], amongst other
marks of divine favour, is known to have been conferred on this

1 Ireland.

Translation of William Reeves, Edition Life of St. Columba
(Historians of Scotland, vol. vi.), p. 3.

BIOGRAPHICAL IMPULSE 5

same saint by God, Who loveth those that love Him, and raiseth
them to immense honour by glorifying more and more those that
magnify and truly praise Him, Who is blessed for evermore." l

Adamnan's Life of St. Columba has been abundantly
praised. It has been pronounced " the most complete piece
of such biography that all Europe can boast of, not only
at so early a period, but even through the whole middle
ages." Although it was not intended for history, professing
to be simply the record of an individual, all historians,
from an early period to the present, have agreed in recog
nising it as " the most authentic voucher now remaining
of several other important particulars of the sacred and
civil history of the Scots and Picts." It is particularly
valuable in connexion with the history of the Irish Church,
of which Dr. William Reeves pronounces it " an inestimable
literary relic . . . perhaps, with all its defects, the most
valuable monument of that ancient institution which has
escaped the ravages of time." 2

Worthy of mention after the work of Adamnan is the
ancient Life of St. Patrick, preserved in the Book of
Armagh. This memoir, ascribed to Muirchu Maccu Mac-
theni, is dedicated to Aedh, or Aidus, anchorite and Bishop
of Sletty in the seventh century (d. 698), and is thus

translation of William Reeves, Edition Life of St. Columba
(Historians of Scotland, vol. vi.), p. 101.

Edition of Life of St. Columba (Historians of Scotland, vol. vi.),
to which the reader is referred for full information in regard to this
important work. This edition contains both the Latin text and an
English translation. These words, too, are worth noting here: " In
these lives or acts lies the chief, oftentimes the sole authority for
all the knowledge we possess, or are ever likely to possess, of an age
and a class of men that form an important link in the chain that
connects us with past times; it is a mine, not always the richest,
but often the only one, to which the historian of a long interval in
the history of this people must look for material. When he has
exhausted it, he has exhausted all." Hardy, Descriptive Catalogue,
vol. i. part i. p. xviii. Wentworth Huyshe has made an excellent
translation of the Life of Columba for Routl edge's " New Universal
Library."

6 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

practically as old as the Life of St. Columba. Maccu Mac-
theni was one of the earliest authors to collect material in
regard to St. Patrick, and for this reason his work is
accounted the most reliable of the existing biographies of
the Saint. The influence of the introductory verses of the
Gospel of St. Luke is clearly evident in the dedicatory
preface:

" Forasmuch as many, my lord Aldus, have taken in hand to set
forth in order a narration, namely this, according to what their
fathers, and they who from the beginning were ministers of the
Word, have delivered unto them; but by reason of the very great
difficulty of the narrative and the diverse opinions and numerous
doubts of very many persons, have never arrived at any one certain
track of history; therefore (if I be not mistaken, according to this
proverb of our countrymen, Like boys brought down into the amphi
theatre) I have brought down the boyish row-boat of my poor
capacity into this dangerous and deep ocean of sacred narrative,
with wildly swelling mounds of billows, lying in unknown seas
between most dangerous whirlpools an ocean never attempted
or occupied by any barks, save only that of my father Cogitosus.
But lest I should seem to make a small matter great, with little
skill, from uncertain authors, with frail memory, with obliterated
meaning and barbarous language, but with a most pious intention,
obeying the command of thy belovedness, and sanctity, and autho
rity, I will now attempt, out of many acts of Saint Patrick, to
explain these, gathered here and there with difficulty." l

The first biography in England of which we know the
writer, " the earliest extant historical work compiled by
an Anglo-Saxon author," is the Life of Wilfrid, by Eddius
Stephanus, which dates from about 709. Eddius, a choir
master in Kent, was summoned by Wilfrid, Bishop of
York, to assist in the organisation of church services in
Northumbria. Inasmuch as Eddius spent forty years in

1 Translation of James Henthorn Todd, St. Patrick Apostle oj
Ireland, p. 402. The Rev. Dr. John Gwynn has recently edited The
Book of Armagh, Hodges, Figgis & Co., Ltd., Dublin. There is
another copy of Maccu Mactheni's work preserved in a manuscript
at Brussels, MS. 64, Royal Library.

BIOGRAPHICAL IMPULSE 7

the service of Wilfrid, and had at his command the personal
knowledge of Bishop Acca and Abbot Tathbert, to the
latter of whom Wilfrid had at one time told in full the story
of his life, he was well qualified to undertake the task of
biographer. His method is much more logical than that of
Adamnan. He begins with the birth of Wilfrid, proceeds in
chronological order to his death, and continues with details
of miracles wrought by means of Wilfrid's silken robe, and
of signs seen in the sky to show that Wilfrid was made
equal with St. Peter and St. Andrew.

A distinct advance over the work of Adamnan is the use
of letters and documents connected with the ecclesiastical
controversies in which Wilfrid had a part. These letters and
documents known to us only through this biography are
used, it must be observed, not so much to throw light on
the personality of the individual as to elucidate the events
in which Wilfrid took part. The author had no work to
which to refer, save an anonymous Life of St. Cutbbert,
which had been written and kept at Lindisfarne. It must
be said, though, that Eddius made good use of this model ;
for he not only borrowed the prologue, " merely altering
the names," but "in another instance . . . gives to his
patron, after he becomes Bishop, the character which had
been already ascribed with far more justice to Cuthbert
himself." l Canon Raine points out, however, that Eddius*
work precedes that of the Venerable Bede and that the
events given towards the end of the fifth book of the
Ecclesiastical History (cap. xix.) are a summary of
Eddius' Life. The Life of Wilfrid, as biography, excels
that of Columba, and Eddius deserves to be regarded as
" one of the leaders in the very front rank of the vanguard
of English scholars."

The work of the Venerable Bede next claims our attention.

1 James Raine, Historians of York (Rolls Series), vol. i. p. xxxii.

8 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

Although known chiefly as an historian, Bede has a place
among the biographical writers of this period by reason
of his Life of St. Cuthbert and Lives of the Abbots of the
Monasteries of Wearmouih and Jarrow. It is the prose Life
of St. Cuthbert) written about 721, in which we are now
particularly interested. Once, Bede informs us, he had
written Cuthbert's life in Latin verse, a habit of which there
are numerous examples scattered throughout this period.
In the prose Life, Bede has followed the chronological order,
proceeding from Cuthbert's youth to his death, and to the
miracles performed by his relics. So far as the miraculous
element is concerned, the narrative harks back to that of
Adamnan; of the forty-six chapters, thirty-nine are con
cerned with miraculous events. It may, for this reason,
seem that no advancement whatever had been made in
regard to the use of miraculous details since Adamnan
wrote of Columba. It is very evident, however, to the care
ful reader that whatever may have been the attitude of
those who examined Bede's work with such scrupulous
care l and passed all these stories without question, in the
mind of Bede himself there was a doubt too strong to be
entirely concealed.

In remarking on the manner in which Cuthbert was
cured of a painful swelling in his knee by following the
advice of an angel which appeared to him, Bede says:
" And if it should seem incredible to any one, that an angel
should appear on horseback, let him read the history of
the Maccabees, in which it is related that angels came on
horseback to the defence of Judas Maccabeus and the
temple of God." And again, in relating how two crows
sought by prayers and gifts to appease Cuthbert for an
injury they had done to him, Bede remarks, " Nor let it

1 As explained in the dedication of the Life of St. Cuthbert and in
the preface to the Ecclesiastical History.

BIOGRAPHICAL IMPULSE 9

seem absurd to any one to derive a lesson of virtue from
birds, since Solomon saith, * Go to the ant, O sluggard, and
consider her ways and learn wisdom.' " The Rev. Stopford
A. Brooke calls our attention to the fact that when Bede
" is speaking in his own person, he has no knowledge of the
miraculous. When he has told the tale of Cuthbert quench
ing in one day a supernatural as well as a natural fire, he
adds, * But I, and those who are like me conscious of our
own weakness, can do nothing in that way against material
fire.' Again, when he speaks of the beasts and birds obey
ing Cuthbert * We, for the most part,' he says, * have lost
our dominion over the creation, for we neglect to obey the
Lord.' The same careful note steals sometimes into the
Ecclesiastical History. It represents the struggle, it may be
an altogether unconscious struggle, of the temper of the
scholar who demands accuracy with the temper of the
pious monk to whom the miraculous was so dear and so
useful." *

We see, too, in this work a yet more distinct emphasis
upon the moral purpose; the Life is entirely a paean of
praise. Bede " is fond of dwelling upon the efficacious
preaching of a holy life " ; the moral purpose is uppermost in
his mind. Indeed, Bede has set down in the Ecclesiastical
History (sect, i) his opinion in regard to relating " good
things of good men " and " evil things of wicked persons " :
" For when history relates good things of good men, the
attentive hearer is excited to imitate that which is good;
or when it mentions evil things of wicked persons, neverthe
less the religious and pious hearer or reader, by shunning
that which is hurtful and perverse, is the more earnestly
excited to perform those things which he knows to be good,
and worthy of God." This practice may be of value for the
purposes of a moralist; it is scarcely the principle for a
1 History of Early English Literature, vol. ii. p. 160.

io ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

biographer to follow who wishes to set forth a human being.
The practice of relating only good things of good men was
carried to such an extreme in the progress of English
biography as to become a vice.

We have said that thirty-nine out of the forty-sir
chapters are concerned with the miraculous. From the
remaining chapters we get glimpses of the man Cuthbert
himself, and, from the biographical point of view, these are
worth all the rest. From such passages as these we see what
Bede might have done in the way of biography had he not
been prevented by the spirit of the age in which he lived:

" So great moreover was Cuthbert's skill in teaching, so vast was
his power of loving persuasion, so striking was the light of his
angelic countenance, that no one in his presence dared to conceal
from him the hidden secrets of his heart, but all declared openly in
confession what each had done amiss, thinking in truth that none of
his misdeeds were concealed from him."

M He was also wont to seek out and preach in those remote villages,
which were situated far from the world in wild mountain places and
fearful to behold, which as well by their poverty and distance up
the country prevented intercourse between them and such as could
instruct their inhabitants. Abandoning himself willingly to this
pious work, Cuthbert cultivated these remote districts and people
with so much zeal and learning, that he often did not return to his
monastery for an entire week, sometimes for two or three, yea occa
sionally for even a full month; remaining all the time in the moun
tains, and calling back to heavenly concerns these rustic people, by
the word of his preaching as well as by his example of virtue." 1

" Now there were in the monastery certain monks who chose
rather to follow their ancient custom than to obey the new rule.
These, nevertheless, he overcame by the modest power of his
patience, and by daily practice he brought them by little and little
to a better disposition. As he frequently discoursed in the assembly
of the brethren about the rule, when he might well have been
wearied out with the sharp remarks of those that spoke against it,
he would suddenly rise up, and dismissing the assembly with a

1 The two foregoing paragraphs are from chapter ix.

BIOGRAPHICAL IMPULSE n

placid mind and countenance, depart. But nevertheless, on the
following day, as if he had suffered no opposition the day before,
he repeated the same admonitions to the same audience, until by
degrees he brought them round, as we have said, to what he wished.
For he was a man specially endowed with the grace of patience, and
most invincible in stoutly enduring all opposition that might occur,
whether to mind or body. At the same time he bore a cheerful
countenance amid every distress that might happen, so that it
was clearly understood that he despised outward tribulations by
the inward consolations of the Holy Spirit."

" His raiment was very ordinary; and he used such moderation
in this respect that he was not remarkable either for neatness or
slovenliness." l

Such passages as these, together with the account of Cuth-
bert's illness and death, stand out in welcome relief from
the mass of the miraculous.

After Bede, biography in England was continued by
Felix, hermit of Crowland, in his Life of St. Guthlac, written
between 747 and 749. The narrative is of little intrinsic
worth, not differing materially from other lives of saints.
It is worthy of mention here because of its connexion with
English literature. Some time in the tenth or eleventh
century it was translated into Old English a and no doubt
furnished the material for the second part of the St. Guthlac
poem attributed to Cynewulf, and thus enables us to estab
lish the only date we have in the life of that mysterious
writer.

The first biography of an English layman is the Life of
Alfred the Great, the work of Asser, Bishop of St. David's.

1 These two paragraphs from chapter xvi. The translation is that
of the Rev. Joseph Stevenson in The Church Historians of England,
vol. i. part ii.

Wanley ascribed the Old English prose translation of the Vita
Guthlaci (MS. Cptt. Vesp. D. xxi.) to Aelfric. C. W. Goodwin, who
published an edition in 1848, says: " The Life of St. Guthlac, hermit
of Crowland, was originally written in Latin, by one Felix, of whom
nothing is with certainty known. . . . When and by whom the
translation was made is unknown: the style is not that of Aelfric,
to whom it has been groundlessly ascribed."

12 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

Asser became acquainted with Alfred about 884 and
enjoyed an intimate friendship with the King until 893, in
which year the Life was written. There is nothing to show
that Asser ever continued the narrative beyond the year
893, and since Alfred survived until 901, Asser's work has
the interest of contemporaneous composition. Asser had a
great man as subject, yet he fails markedly as a biographer,
even when we take into consideration the primitive stage
of life-writing. He " seems never to have realised to himself
the honour to which he had attained in being selected to
become the channel through which posterity should be
made acquainted with the outer and inner life of ' England's
darling.' " x The author seems to have had in mind no
definite plan; the work is lacking entirely in artistic skill.
The whole is a remarkable conglomeration of history and
biography, a weaving together in loose fashion of the Saxon
Chronicle and the results of Asser's own acquaintance and
observation.

One cannot refrain from smiling at many of Asser's
whimsical methods. Thus, he naively traces Alfred's
genealogy back to Adam; frequently drags in utterly
irrelevant material; and otherwise rambles on knowingly
and, to all intents, wilfully. His style is rhetorical and
verbose; he " gives one the impression that the author
thought more of the display of his powers of composition
and command of recondite words than of the matter con
veyed by them. Sometimes, it is true, he shows a tendency
to excessive explanation, but more often his meaning is
obscured by a cloud of verbiage." 2 He is perhaps the most
hopeless rambler of the period : he seems to regard Alfred as
a thread on which to string whatever stories came to his
fancy. He is aware of the fact, too, as these passages prove:

1 Stevenson, The Church Historians of England, vol. ii. part ii.
p. xiii.

3 W. H. Stevenson, Asser, p. Ixxxix.

BIOGRAPHICAL IMPULSE 13

" And now, to use nautical language, I will no longer commit my
vessel to the winds and waves, and, putting out to sea, steer a
roundabout course through the massacres of war and the enumera
tion of years, but must return to the object which first stirred me
up to this undertaking. I must now treat, as far as I have obtained
information, of the infancy and boyhood of my venerated master,
Alfred, King of the Anglo-Saxons, as briefly and as fully as I
possibly can."

It is not long until he has once more left the subject in
hand, to which he thus returns :

" With the view of returning to the point from which I digressed,
and that I may not be compelled by long navigation to miss the
port of my wished-for repose, I will hasten to give some account, as
far as my knowledge will allow, of the life and manners, of the just
conversation, and of the greater part of the exploits, of Alfred, my
Lord, the King of the Anglo-Saxons." l

With all its defects, the work is of great value. It throws
much light on a dark period of English history, a period
known to us only by the Saxon Chronicle and a " few
charters preserved in much later chartularies, of a more or
less suspicious nature." Mr. W. H. Stevenson is of the
opinion that " probably no work of similar extent has con
tributed so much to English history. At an early period
it was transcribed almost entirely into the continuous
chronicles of Florence of Worcester and Simeon of Durham,
and by their means it descended to Royer of Howden and
the St. Alban's school of writers, whose influence upon
mediaeval history-writing in England was all-pervading." 2
As biography, it stands in strong contrast to the lives of
the saints, overburdened as they are with stories of the
miraculous. It shows too, especially in the second portion
drawn chiefly from Asser's personal knowledge, a nearer
approach to modern biography than anything else of the
period: it shows an appreciation of the personal anecdote

1 Translation of Stevenson, The Church Historians of England,
vol. ii. part ii.
* Asser, p. xi.

14 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

that is promising, and a willingness to consider a man from
the human point of view that is wholesome. One feels after
reading the entire narrative that one has been in the pre
sence of a human being. It is worthy of notice, also, that
the work is not purposely or mainly a panegyric. 1

In the Memorials of St. Dunstan, edited by William
Stubbs, there are preserved six lives of Dunstan, by different
writers, covering the period from about 1000 to 1464. One
of the lives was written within sixteen years, another
within twenty-three years of Dunstan's death. The two
are dedicated to his successors, personal friends who knew
him either in the capacity of fellow scholars or of disciples.
Dunstan was an Anglo-Saxon bishop of the highest type,
the close friend and the chief minister of Edgar, " around
whose name the last glories of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms
circle." It is not because the Memorials of St. Dunstan
exhibit any marked development in the history of the
biography of the period that we include a notice of them
here. It is rather because, " for the history of England in
the latter half of the tenth century we have, except the
very meagre notices of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, no
contemporary materials, unless we admit the lives of the
Saints of the Benedictine revival. Florence of Worcester,
writing within fifty years of the Conquest, could find
nothing to add to the details of the Chronicle for this period,
except the notices of Dunstan drawn directly from the
biographies of the saint. The light which they shed is not
great, but it is precious in proportion to its scantiness." 2

We close the consideration of this period with the

1 " The purpose of the biography of a great man is in part that
of inciting others to follow his example. But in the present work
there is no reason to consider that the didactic character is other
than incidental, or that it was written with any other purpose than
that of celebrating the doings and recording the life of a truly great
man." Stevenson, Asser, cviii-cix.

William Stubbs, Memorials of St. Dunstan (Rolls Series), p. ix.

BIOGRAPHICAL IMPULSE 15

earliest of the various lives of the Venerable Bede, a work
by an unknown writer produced some time before 1104.
The narrative adds nothing to our stock of information
about Bede; it is but a repetition and amplification in high-
flown language 1 of Bede's autobiographical sketch at the
close of the Ecclesiastical History. It seems worth while,
however, to give it a place here, as in a way marking the
end of this period; for, while it, too, is panegyric, it shows
an entire absence of the miraculous. The writer treats of
Bede as a holy man, to be sure, but not as a man who
wrought miracles at every turn. Of course, narratives of the
miraculous in the lives of holy men continued to be written
long after this date: that there are none mentioned in the
life of so great a man as Bede, written thus early, is signifi
cant. 2 An epoch all but closes with this narrative.

It is not difficult to find the influences which inspired
and shaped the writings of these earliest biographers.
Inasmuch as all of them were churchmen, it is in the litera
ture of the Church that they found their models. The works
abound in references to the Scriptures and the Church
Fathers. Bede's Life of St. Cuthbert reminds one of the
Gospel narratives. The resemblance of the prologue of the
Life of St. Patrick by Muirchu Maccu Mactheni to that of
St. Luke's Gospel has already been pointed out. Asser
seems to have gone further afield ; W. H. Stevenson shows

1 This may be given as an example of the style: " And thus this
eminent wise bee of the Church, thirsting for that sweetness that is
grateful to God, gathered flowers all over the field that the Lord
had blessed, with which, making honey, as it were, by the alchemy
of wisdom, he indited compositions that are sweeter than honey
and the honeycomb."

1 " Alcuin gives an account of a miracle wrought by Bede's
relics. De Sanctis Ebor. vv. 1316-7. With this exception what
Fuller says of him is true : ' Saxon Saints who had not the tenth
part of his sanctity, nor hundredth part of his learning, are said to
have wrought miracles ad lectoris nauseam ; not one single miracle
is reported to have been done by Bede.' " C. Plummer, Baedae
Opera Historica, Tomus i. p. Ixxix, note.

16 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

that he was familiar with Einhard's Life of Charles the
Great, 1 and suggests that he may also have taken as models
Thegan's Life of Ludzvig the Pious and a Life of Ludwig by
an unknown author described as the " Astronomer." For
the most part, however, the work of the Latin period began
and proceeded without appreciable foreign influence other
than what came through ecclesiastical channels. Plutarch's
Lives were unknown to the men of this period in Britain :
the earliest Latin version was printed only in 1470; the
first edition of the original text was not published until 1517.
After one has completed an examination of the literature
of this period, one is first of all impressed with the scant
attention given to man as man; such sketches as are given
are rather in the way of outward events; the inner life is
passed over as of little importance; the individual is sub
ordinated to institutions. 2 It is not to be wondered at that
so little is said of the man and that so much is recorded of
the work and of the Church; men were supposed to sink
their identity into that of the institution. The Church and
its work were the important matters; man was only an
instrument; his life was not to be held dear. It is worth
while, also, to bear in mind the circle for which these
memorials were written: they were addressed to church
men to whom other churchmen were daily companions ; to
men who were overcome by the brightness of God's glory

1 ". . . there is evidence that he was acquainted with the greatest
of the Frankish biographies, the Life of Charles the Great by Em-
hard. In c. 73 he adapts to his own purpose the language of the
preface of this famous work, and in the following chapters we can
perceive some indications that the order of his biographical matter
has been influenced by that in Einhard." Mr. Stevenson goes on to
say that Asser is much more accurate in historical details than is
Einhard. He calls Einhard's Life " a medley of phrases culled from
Suetonius " ; and says that " it abounds with chronological errors."
Asser, Introduction, sect. 51.

2 Thus Doctor Reeves laments that Adamnan did not write the
history of his Church rather than the Life of St. Columba. Life of
St. Columba, Preface, p. xx.

BIOGRAPHICAL IMPULSE 17

and the light from the New Jerusalem. The recognition of
the individual which was later to make English biography
a thing of living and personal literary importance came far
later.

Writing in 1853, the Rev. Joseph Stevenson, in regretting
the fact that no contemporary life of the Venerable Bede
has reached us, said : " This deficiency in our early litera
ture did not arise from any ignorance on the part of his
contemporaries respecting the merits of Bede, or from any
unwillingness to acknowledge them with due respect and
reverence. . . . We must therefore look elsewhere for the
reasons for this apparent neglect ; nor will it be difficult to
find them. They arise from the character of the historian's
life, which passed without the occurrence of any of those
incidents which afford the chief scope for the exercise of the
biographer's occupation. Had a life of Bede been written
by a contemporary, it would almost necessarily have been
scanty, even to meagreness; and although we might have
possessed definite information upon many points which are
at present obscure, yet in all probability we should not
have been gainers to the extent which at first might be
anticipated. These remarks, let it be remembered, apply
only to the external incidents of his life. Had he possessed
a biographer enabled, by circumstances and kindred feeling,
to record his conversation and the tone and character of
his mind, to furnish us with the picture of his e very-day
occupations, as he was at study in the cell, or at prayer in
the Church, and to admit us to the communion with his
spirit as his days passed in the retirement of the monastery,
this indeed would have been a treasure."

" Yet," Mr. Stevenson continues, " we scarcely have a
right to expect such a document. Bede was, in his own time,
no prominent character. . . . However much, therefore,
we may lament the absence of an early biography of Bede,

B

1 8 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

we ought not to be surprised at this omission. There was
not much to record beyond his birth and his death, his
prayers and his labours. He did not, like St. Guthlac, retire
into the wilderness, and wage war with the evil spirits by
which it was haunted. He did not, like St. Cuthbert, lay
aside the bishop's robe for the hermit's cowl, and exchange
the splendour of a court for the solitude of a rocky island.
He did not, like St. Columbanus, carry the reputation of
his native church into foreign countries, and establish
monasteries which should vie with each other in recording
the history of their founder. He did not, like St. Wilfrid of
York, plead his cause before kings and synods, and strive,
through all opposition, to raise the ecclesiastical power
above the secular authority. He did not, like St. Wilbrord
and St. Willibald, preach Christianity among the heathen,
and leave home and kindred for the extension of the ever
lasting gospel. Had he done any of these things he would,
most probably, have found a biographer; but his life pre
sented no such salient points, and it was unrecorded." *

We have to see in the following chapters how long the
notion prevailed that unless a man had taken part in great
events his life was not considered worthy of detailed record.
In other words, we must follow the course of biography
until it frees itself from the entanglements of history. We
must see how biography changed from a mere curriculum
vitae to " the faithful portrait of a soul in its adventures
through life." It was only as biography changed from
mere narrative to such portraiture that it became truly
literature.

1 The Church Historians of England, vol. i. part ii. Preface, pp. i-ii.

TRANSITION AND PREPARATION 19

CHAPTER II

THE PERIOD OF TRANSITION AND PREPARATION (lo66-I5OO)

THE years lying between 1066 and 1500 constitute a tran
sition period as well in the development of the English
language and nation, and of history, as in that of English
biography. The transition period itself divides into two:
the one extending from 1066 to about 1200; the second
continuing from 1200 to about 1500. These dates are, of
course, not arbitrary; they but represent, in a way, limits
which overlap and merge into one another almost imper
ceptibly. During the first of these divisions, the Normans
slowly reduced the Saxon population to complete sub
mission, while the genius of the Anglo-Saxon language was
permeating the language of the Norman conquerors and
slowly shaping itself to be the vehicle of thought-expression
of the greater Britain of the future. The second division
witnessed the ascendency of the English tongue, the libera-
tionof history from the thraldom of the credulous imagination
of the tales of miracle and wonder, and the rise of con
ditions which made possible a kind of biography distinctly
in advance of anything which had previously been known in
the British Isles. So far as they contribute directly to the
purpose of this volume, the four centuries may be quickly
summarised.

The period from 1066 to 1200 is rather distinctly marked.
The purely Anglo-Saxon influence which preceded it rapidly
declined, ending with the close of the Saxon Chronicle in
1 154. Beginning with the date of the Norman Conquest and
ending in 1199 with the reign of Richard I., the literature

20 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

of the country " may be considered purely historical in
comparison with any other period included in the middle
ages. Saints' lives, legends, and miracles . . . now become
comparatively rare; and if they do not disappear altogether
before the increasing historical spirit of the age, they cease
to be the exclusive sources of information for the historical
inquirer." l It was at this time that William of Malmesbury
came forward to put new life into the writing of history,
" the first English writer after the time of Bede who
attempted successfully to raise history above the dry and
undigested details of a chronicle." 2 Of William of Malmes
bury, a modern English historian asserts that " we may
fairly claim for him the credit of being the first writer after
Bede who attempted to give to his details of dates and
events such a systematic connexion, in the way of cause
and consequence, as entitles them to the name of history.
. . . He prides himself, and with some reason, on his skill
in the delineation of character " 8 His Gesta Pontificorum
Anglorum has been pronounced " the foundation of the
early ecclesiastical history of England on which all writers
have chiefly relied." 4 These statements must be taken
with due regard to the age of which they are spoken. They
do not mean that history, as we understand it to-day, sprang
full-fledged into being at this time; they mean simply that
the line of demarcation is here drawn; that the dawn of
better things is at hand. Such improvement as is thus
indicated extends, of course, to the more strictly biographic
narratives of this time.

During this interval, the stream of biographical writing

1 Hardy, Descriptive Catalogue, vol. ii. p. ix.

8 Wright, Biographica Britannica Liter aria, vol. ii. p. 137.

3 Stubbs, Willelmi Malmesbiriensis Monachi de Gestis Regum
Anglorum (Rolls Series), vol. i. p. x.

4 N. E. S. A. Hamilton, Willelmi Malmesbiriensis de Gestis Ponti-
ficum Anglorum (Rolls Series), pp. ix-x.

TRANSITION AND PREPARATION 21

ran on in somewhat the same fashion as before 1066; that
is, the language continued to be Latin, and the writers,
churchmen; the authors recorded notices only of those
prominent in Church or State; and, while professedly treat
ing of individuals, gave not so much a personal account as
a record of outward events. By those who are considering
the development of biography, the great mass of such narra
tives as were produced during this first half of the transition
period may be passed over unnoticed. Here, again, these
writings are of value chiefly to the historian. As before, we
need select only such as seem to stand out from the mass as
marking advance.

Eadmer in his Life of Anselm, completed by 1140, enters
somewhat carefully into the details of Anselm's boyhood
and shows an appreciation of the human qualities of the
subject of his memoir. " The chroniclers of those days,"
remarks R. W. Church, " were not in the habit of going
back to a man's first days ; they were satisfied with taking
him when he began to make himself known and felt in the
world. It is a point of more than ordinary interest as regards
Anselm, that we have some authentic information about
the times when no one cared about him. He had the fortune
to have a friend who was much with him in his later life
. . . who, more than most of his contemporaries among
literary monks, was alive to points of character. Eadmer
. . . saw something else worth recording in his great arch
bishop besides the public passages of his life and his
supposed miracles. He observed and recorded what Anselm
was as a man." 1 In an age when most writers thought
" the getting possession of the tooth of a saint of more
importance than such events " it is hopeful to find a writer
like Eadmer.

William of Malmesbury's chief contributions to biography
1 Saint Anselm, pp. 7-8.

22 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

are his Life of St. Aldhelm, written before 1125, and his
Life of St. Wulstan (Wulfstari), Bishop of Worcester, dating
from about I I4O. 1 The latter is based on an earlier but no
longer existent Life by Coleman, a monk of Worcester and
Prior of Westbury. The career of Thomas Becket, Arch
bishop of Canterbury, attracted the attention of many of
his own and the following generation. Worthy of mention
here is the Life by Becket's clerk, William Fitz-Stephen;
that by John of Salisbury, with its supplement by Alan of
Tewkesbury; and the long, rambling Life by Herbert of
Bosham. " Herbert is, indeed, one of the most provoking
of authors. Instead of being content to tell an intelligible
story, he continually digresses into long discourses which
are quite beside the subject, and in themselves are mere
nothingness; and when he has tried the reader's patience
with tedious superfluities of this kind, he often spends a
further space in vindicating his diffuseness, and in telling
us that we ought to be thankful for it." z Becket was
murdered in 1170. Within sixteen years after his death the
lives here mentioned had been written, that by Herbert
being most certainly completed by 1186.

The most pretentious of such narratives, however, is
what is known as the Magna Fita y the Great Life, of Hugh,
Bishop of Lincoln, the work of Adam, Abbot of Eynsham,
near Oxford, written between 1212 and 1220. In the Rolls
Series edition 3 the Magna Vita occupies 378 large pages.
Adam was a close personal friend of Hugh, knowing him so
well, in fact, that Mr. Dimock says " we may look upon

1 The Life of St. Aldhelm'may be found in Gale's Scriptores Rerum
Anglicarum, vol. iii.; in Wharton's Anglia Sacra, vol. ii.; and in
Hamilton's Gesta Pontificum Anglorum (Rolls Series). The Wulstan
may be found in Anglia Sacra, vol. ii. pp. 241-70.

James Craigie Robertson, Materials for the History of Thomas
Becket (Rolls Series), vol. iii. pp. xxiii-iv.

* Magna Vita St. Hugonis Episcopi Lincolniensis, edited by
James F. Dimock.

TRANSITION AND PREPARATION 23

much of what this volume [the Magna Vita] contains, it
seems strongly to me, almost as if it had been penned by
Hugh's own hand." The Rev. George G. Perry, who, in his
St. Hugh of Lincoln, made thorough use of the work of
Adam, speaks of " the rich, full, and varied details of the
Magna Vita "/ and yet, he continues, " it can . . . hardly
be said that the writer . . . has left us, in the strict sense,
a life of Hugh. The outlines of his earlier life are preserved,
and the events of the few last years are pretty fully given,
but for the ten or twelve years which followed after his
elevation to the episcopate very little is supplied." It is
worthy of note that the writer of the Magna Vita empha
sises the man rather than the work of the man. Adam
" treats the subject of his memoir altogether from the point
of view of the saint, and scarce gives us any information as
to his connexion with the public events of his day. . . .
Hugh was not a statesman. He shrank altogether from
secular affairs, and loved better to be cleaning the scuttles
at Witham, than to be taking his place in the Curia Regis.
There is, therefore, much more to say of his inner life than
of his outer." * As a matter of fact, however, there could
be no such thing as a "Life," in the strict sense of the word,
at this early date, nor for many centuries.

In common with everything else of the kind that had
been written up until 1200, the Magna Vita is panegyric.
The author exhibits a too eager desire to make everything

1 Perry, St. Hugh of Lincoln, p. 253. Cf. also what Herbert
Thurston, S.J., says : " Of all our mediaeval saints, there is not
one in whom the man, as distinct from the bishop or the ruler, is so
intimately known to us. Even St. Thomas of Canterbury, or St.
Anselm, are spectral and shadowy figures in comparison. Hugh,
thanks to the memoirs of his Benedictine chaplain, stands before us
in flesh and blood. Despite its rather involved Latin, and its dis
cursive style, the Life of the Saint known as the Magna Vita has
left us a portrait superior for truth and vividness even to the sketch
of his contemporary, Abbot Samson, in the Chronicle of Jocelin de
Brakelond. The Life of St. Hugh of Lincoln, p. vi.

24 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

redound to the " honour " of St. Hugh. " He has no doubt,"
remarks Mr. Perry, " drawn his hero as somewhat too
perfect, but this we may readily excuse. Contrasted with
most other writers of the Lives of Saints, he stands well.
He exhibits far more traces of humanity than are to be
found in most of them." 1 Indeed, we may say that the
diminution in the record of the miraculous is remarkable.
Hugh himself was no lover of the miraculous, looking upon
the craving after miracles as evidence of want of faith. This
attitude no doubt influenced his biographer strongly; at
any rate, in the long narrative of the Magna Vita there are
only nine references to miraculous events. The work stands,
therefore, in line with the anonymous Life of Bede as illus
trative of the change of temper in the minds of men towards
the working of Providence in human affairs. From this
time forth although allowing the error to revive at times
in strange ways men were steadily freeing themselves of
the shackles of superstition; were slowly groping towards
the method of scientific investigation, calm reason, and
accurate observation and recording. " And as the obscure
mists of the legendary period disappear, and the steady
light of facts dawns upon the grateful reader, so in the
artless, unsystematic, and sometimes ill-arranged and con
fused narratives and chronicles of the eleventh and the
following century we seem to trace an era of intellectual
progress when the mind of Europe had not yet been trained
in the schools, and the great questions which agitated man
kind had not yet been submitted to logical analysis and
arrangement. The faculty of wonder and its attendant
habit of exaggeration, natural to an early stage in the
national life and its conversion from barbarism to Chris-

1 " The great life of St. Hugh is one of the most bright and fresh
of all the bright saint-lives of the Middle Ages." William Holden
Hutton, The English Saints (Bampton Lectures, 1903), p. 213.

TRANSITION AND PREPARATION 25

tianity, gave way before the steadier observance of facts
forced upon men by their altered position, by their new
relations to the Continent, by the active duties and out
door life imposed upon them, by the exigencies and demands
of feudalism. But observation rose for the present to no
higher grade than to a careful collection of historical facts
and documents, and was itself to give place, in its turn,
to the new habits of generalisation and deduction which
observation itself had helped to produce." l

The second half of this period of transition the three
hundred years lying between 1200 and 1500 constitutes
a time of almost entire suspense in the production of bio
graphical narrative. These were the centuries of prepara
tion for biography in the English language. They were
centuries fraught with great consequences. The English
language was slowly shaping itself for use, superseding the
Norman French tongue in the law courts in 1362. From
1381 onwards, translations of the Bible in English were
exerting a deep influence upon the establishing of the lan
guage, and upon modes of thought and manner of writing.
Chaucer, the one brilliant literary light of the period, arose,
and taking the language of his day, showed how effective it
could be as an instrument of poetical narration. Men were
gaining larger conceptions of life and liberty, winning for
themselves between 1215 and 1225 rights typified by the
Magna Charta. Britain was ceasing to be insular; the out
look was no longer merely from the cloister: the Crusades
had brought in new influences; and, most of all, the dis
covery of America in 1492 opened wide the gates of the
world. The wars by means of which the nation was shaping
itself, as well as the great discoveries of new regions, made
the period one of interest in events rather than in men, and
biography as a business there could not be, until there came
1 Hardy, Descriptive Catalogue, vol. ii. pp. ix-x.

26 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

an overwhelming interest in men. Most of the literature
of the period was objective rather than subjective.

One work dating from the last portion of the fifteenth
century attracts attention because of the extensive use of
the personal anecdote. The author, John Blakman (Blake-
man, or Blackman), may well be given the credit of being
the first to appreciate the value of the personal anecdote.
We know little more of Blakman (fl. 1436-48) than that he
was admitted a fellow of Merton College, Oxford, in 1436,
and that his position as fellow of Eton brought him into
close personal relations with Henry VI. From his own
knowledge, as well as from information gained through
those in attendance upon the sovereign, Blakman wrote
a brief collection of anecdotes illustrative of the virtues of
Henry VI. 1 Under such headings as Devota habitudo ejus
in ecclesia, Pudicitia ejus, Humilitas regis, and Pietas et
patientia ejus, Blakman proceeds to develop what is in
truth a catalogue of virtues amounting to a public testi
monial or recommendation. It is indeed claimed that the
work was composed to advance Henry VII.'s project of
canonising Henry VI. We know that Henry VII. petitioned
this canonisation of three popes in succession, Innocent
VIII. (1484-92); Alexander VI. (1492-1503); and Julius
II. (1508-13). " Blakman's apotheosis was doubtless
intended to prepare the public mind for this step." 2 One
of the best of Blakman's anecdotes is that which relates
how Henry, in company with a number of his nobles and
attendants, was confronted at Cripplegate with the muti
lated body of a traitor set upon a stake. When the King

1 Collectarium M ansuetudinum et Bonorum Morum Regis Henrici
VI., ex collectione Magistri Joannis Blakman bacchalaurei theologiae,
et post Cartusiae monachi Londini. First printed in Thomas Hearne's
Duo Return Anglicarum, Oxford, 1732, pp. 285-307.

a I. S. Leadam, Dictionary of National Biography, article " John
Blakman."

TRANSITION AND PREPARATION 27

learned whose body it was, and why it was exposed there,
he immediately ordered that it be taken away, with the
remark, " I am unwilling that any Christian should be so
cruelly treated because of me." But it is well to have the
story in Blakman's own words : " Primo, cum semel
descenderet a villa sancti Albani Londinias per Crepylgate,
videns supra portam ibi quartarium hominis positum super
sudem sublimen, quaesivit, quid hoc esset ? Et respondent-
ibus sibi dominis suis, quod erat IIII. pars cujusdam pro-
ditoris sui, qui falsus fuerat regiae majestati, ait rex,
Auferatur. Nolo enim aliquem Christianum tarn cTudeliter
pro me tractari, & continuo sublatum est quartarium. Qui
hoc vidit, testimonium dicit." The first ten centuries in the
course of English biography produced only too few with
such a sense as that of Blakman's for the little but reveal
ing incidents of character.

None of the narratives mentioned in either this chapter
or in the one preceding could exert much influence on the
actual development of biography, for the simple reason
that they were not widely circulated. They existed only in
the form of manuscripts slowly and laboriously copied by
hand, and circulated among a limited number, all of whom
belonged to the same class as did the producers of the works.
None of them were printed until long after they were first
composed. The Magna Vita of St. Hugh was not printed
in full until 1864; its very length prevented it from being
duplicated to any extent in its own day. This was true of
all such narratives until the invention of printing.

About 1476, William Caxton set up the first English
printing press in a spot close to Westminster Abbey and
thus began the work which was ultimately to make all
kinds of English writing the common heritage of the people.
Before the end of the fifteenth century the earliest paper-
mill in England was established at Stevenage, in Hertford-

28 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

shire, affording the means for a cheap multiplication of
books. Edward IV. and his brothers encouraged the art
of printing and helped to make it possible for the literature
of the Renaissance and the thoughts of the rising Reforma
tion to mould the minds and hearts of the nation to a new
appreciation of human life and of human individuality.

Nothing bears witness to the carelessness of the men of
the period in regard to life records more than the con
spicuous absence of materials for a biography of Geoffrey
Chaucer. Chaucer was not only a poet; he was also a
courtier, closely connected with the political life of his time.
Beyond the merest records of outward events, however, and
most of these collected in modern times, we have nothing
from which to attempt to reconstruct his life. " The study
of Chaucer's life may be divided into two periods, that of
the legend, and that of the appeal to fact. The first period
extends from Leland to Nicolas, the second from Nicolas to
the Life-Records gathered by the Chaucer Society, and
subsequently. . . . The work of killing the legend has,
however, been difficult." 1

Thus it is that the four centuries clearly constitute a
period of transition and preparation. The succeeding
period will be much influenced by its predecessor; the new
will be a period of gradual loosening of the old habits of
thought and methods of writing, and a slow breaking away
from the influence of the Latin language. When next we
meet with biography written for the first time in the
national language, we shall find that it is almost a beginning
de novo.

1 Eleanor Prescott Hammond, Chaucer: A Bibliographical Manual,
p. I. See also Thomas R. Lounsbury, Studies in Chaucer, passim.

ENGLISH VERSE LIVES 29

CHAPTER III

ENGLISH VERSE LIVES

CONTEMPORANEOUSLY with the prose lives of saints there was
produced a vast number of such lives in verse. These con
stitute an interesting stage in the progress of hagiology; in
fact, apart from accounts of the lives and miracles of saints,
very few biographical narratives in verse, of any sort, exist,
whether in Latin or English. We have already remarked
Bede's reference to his Life of St. Cuthbtrt, written in Latin
verse, and have observed that a number of other such
Latin verse lives are extant. All that has been said in
connexion with the prose lives in regard to the questions
of authorship and authenticity applies with equal force to
these kindred verse narratives. The work of the Early
English Text Society has done much to render accessible
the most important of these lives; it remains true, how
ever, that only a beginning has been made the work of
publishing and of reducing to order the whole mass is yet
before English scholars. 1 From such a quantity of anony
mous writing for usually the patient monks who com
posed, re-composed, copied, and re-copied these lives

*A recent (1915) statement of the Early English Text Society
calls attention to this fact: " The subscribers to the Original series
must be prepared for the issue of the whole of the Early English
Lives of the Saints sooner or later. The standard collection of
saints' lives in the Corpus and Ashmole MSS., the Harleian MS.
2277, etc., will repeat the Laud set, our No. 87, with additions and
in right order. The foundation MS. Laud 108 had to be printed
first to prevent quite unwieldy collations. The supplementary
lives from the Vernon and other MSS. will form one or two separate
volumes."

30 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

laboured, died, and " gave no sign " of their own indivi
duality the names of only a few authors emerge to satisfy
our curiosity, and of these, little is known. They flit across
the pages of history like shadows out of the past.

Through the medium of Aelfric (fl. 1 006) the habit of
writing verse lives was carried over into Old English. His
Lives of Saints, a set of sermons on Saints' Days formerly
observed by the English Church, are written in a loose sort
of alliterative verse, so loose that Professor Skeat agrees
that " those who prefer to consider the text as being all
equally in prose can do so by disregarding the division
into lines," although he affirms that " in most of the
narratives some attempt at embellishment is very
evident." 1

Robert of Gloucester (Jl. 1260-1300), whose Chronicle
has gained for him a place in English literature, has been
half-heartedly credited with the authorship of a number
of verse lives in Early English. Among others which have
been assigned to him are those of St. Alban, St. Augustine,
St. Birin, and St. Aldhelm. These are written in the same
kind of rhyming verse as the Chronicle, and while we may
agree that arbitrarily to assign the authorship of them to
him on this account alone would be practically to affirm
that at the end of the thirteenth century only Robert of
Gloucester could write such verse, we need not for this
reason deprive him of the honour of authorship of what,
after all, he may have written. 2 It is well to remember in
addition, that the form of Robert of Gloucester's work, to
which Dr. W. Aldis Wright refers as " doggerel verse in

1 See E.E.T.S. No. 76, Original Series (1881).

* "... a bulky collection of saints' lives, immensely popular,
constantly rehandled, altered, and added to the work, doubtless,
in all their forms put together of a very large number of writers, but
in some of the earliest cases at least very probably, if not almost
certainly, Robert's." Saintsbury, History of English Prosody, vol. i.
pp. 67-8.

ENGLISH VERSE LIVES 31

ballad metre," marks a distinct advance in the develop
ment of English metre. 1

The two centuries following Robert of Gloucester supply
four names worthy of mention. The voluminous John
Lydgate (i37O?-!45i ?), who wrought in many fields, and
who has been credited with introducing the legendary epic
into English literature, produced a number of saints' lives
in verse. Of these, the shorter and more compact Saint
Margaret is superior to the long, poorly told St. Edmund
and Fremund. Osbern Bokenham, or Bokenam (1393-
1447 ?) wrote in verse the lives of a number of female saints
and thus earned for himself an almost unique place in Early
English literature. 2 John Capgrave (1393-1464), Prior of
the Austin Friary at Lynn, Norfolk, wrote the Life of St.
Katharine of Alexandria at great length; the five books
into which it is divided comprise more than eight thousand
lines. Henry Bradshaw (d. 1513), " sometyme monke in
Chester," translated " out of latine in English rude and
vyle " a legend, which, " amended with many an ornate
style," became known as the Life of St. Werburge of Chester.
After Bradshaw there is little to record. We are, with him,
drawing near to the age of Shakespeare. Other interests are
beginning to absorb the attention of men. The verse lives of
saints are nearing the time of eclipse.

From such an array, it is difficult to select examples.
Quotation scarcely does justice to the longer lives, such as
Lydgate's Margaret and Edmund and Fremund, or Cap-

1 See Wright, The Metrical Chronicle of Robert of Gloucester (Rolls
Series), vol. i. p. xxxix: and Saintsbury, History of English Prosody,
vol. i. pp. 67-9.

1 " Twice in the earlier English (and no other) literature was an
attempt made to put together the lives of female saints : by Boken
ham in verse, and in the present collection [The Lives of Women
Saints of our Countrie of England, in prose] a peculiar instance of
the veneration which the weaker part of mankind, especially its
godlike members, enjoys in this island." E.E.T.S. No. 86, Original
Series.

32 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

grave's St. Katharine. These should be read at length by
those who wish to gain a notion of their manner and quality.
Most of the verse lives, however, are comparatively brief,
and written in a style so manifestly similar that the reading
of one or two will give a fair notion of the rest. We may,
then, choose two which commemorate great names in early
British church annals that of Saint Cuthbert, the rigid
ascetic, yet tender-hearted ecclesiastic of the North; and
that of Saint Alban, commonly known as the proto-martyr
of Britain.

The Life of St. Cuthbert from which these excerpts are
taken is anonymous. 1 The opening lines plunge at once
into the story of the miraculous announcement to Cuthbert
that he was destined to become a great man in the Church :

" Seint Cuthbert was bore: here in ingelond*
God dide for him fair meracle: as 36 schul understand*
Whil he was a 3ong child : in his ei3ten)>e 3 ere*
Wij? childre he pleide at J?e bal : fat his f elawis were*
J>ere cam forj? a lite child : him J>ou3te J?re 3er old*
A swete creatur and a fair: it was mylde and bold* "

Cuthbert took no notice of the warning to " thinke not on
sich idil games," and

" J?o J?is songe child seigh: pat he his reed for sok*
A doun he fel to J?e ground : and gret dol to him tok*
It began to wepe sore : and his handis to wringe*
}?ese childre hadden dol of him: & bi lesten here pleienge* "

Cuthbert now began to perceive that the " swete fair
creature " was an angel, and from it he received the assur
ance that he was to be made " an hed of holi churche."
Turning at once from his game-playing, Cuthbert entered
upon a life of serious study and devotion. In a most
succinct manner, the anonymous writer follows the course of

1 The version given is that of MS. Tanner 17 (Bodleian), ff. 42^43,
dating from the fifteenth century. It contains 108 lines in all.

ENGLISH VERSE LIVES 33

Cuthbert's life to his elevation to the bishopric of Durham ,
from which point the narrative hurries to its close :

" J>o oure lordis wille was: per after it gan falle*
pat pe bischop of dorham deide : as we ichul don alle*
Men wente & toke seint cuthbert : & made him bischop pere*
His bischopriche he kepte wel : & wel J?e folk gan lere*
J>o was it to-forj?e broust: J?at J>e angil him er seide*
fat he schulde ben hed of holi chirche: as at J?e bal he pleide*
J?o he hadde longe serued god : aftir him he sente*
So )?at in )?e monej? of march: out of Jris world he wente*
To J>e hi 36 ioye of heuene: gode lete us also*
And Jx>ru >>e bone of seint cuthbert: bringe us alle perto."

The Life of St. Alban, which is brief enough to be given
in full, is one of the narratives ascribed to Robert of
Gloucester. Its ninety-eight lines are confined almost
entirely to telling the story of what has come to be styled
the first British martyrdom. The narrative of Alban's
hiding a persecuted Christian fugitive, and of his own con
version through watching the prayers of this outcast; of
the cruel punishment that " shame it was to see "; of the
death " up the hill on high " all this makes an irresistible
appeal, an appeal the pathos of which is heightened by the
quaint language and verse. We can well understand how,
in an age which gave birth to so many legends of the
miraculous, such stories as this found eager readers* and
may well feel sure that the quaint verse, which has not yet
lost its flavour, made a sure appeal to those who read for
themselves, or listened to others read:

" Seyn Albon J?e holi mon: was her of engelonde*
Imartred he was uor godes loue: J>oru our lordes sonde*
Hepene man he was uerst: & of hepene he com*
& sej>)>e as our lord it wolde: he tornde to Christendom*
J?e luj?er prince J?at was J>o: dioclitian*
& )>e oj?er J>at was luj>er ek: J?at hit maximian*
Cristenemen pat hi mi3te iwite: hi broste alle to grounde*
A let hem seche in ech londe: war hi mi3te be ifounde*

c

34 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

A justice pat was wip hem: to engelonde corn-
To martri alle cristenemen: & destine cristendom
A clerc a good cristenemon : hurde telle wide*
Of tormens pat opere hadde: he ne dorste no leng abide*
Ac flei to hude him ellesware: pat he imartred nere*
To St. Albones hous he com : & bad him in pere*
St. Albon po he was wip him: awaitede & isay
Hou he was in orisouns: bope ny3t & dai*
Him }>o3te pat he was a fol: pat he was hepene so longe*
He bigon to leue on ihesu crist : & cristendom auonge*
pe justice let pen clerc seche: so pat it was ikud*
Hou at Albones hous: wip him he was ihud*
Knystes he sende him to vetch : 3if he ifounde were*
Hi come & escce Albon: wer eny such were pere*
30 uor gode quap pis oper: i ne him no3t uorsake*
A such man as ich am mysulf : i nele 3ou non oper take-
A pef quepe pis luper men: artou icome herto*
Wen pu wolt as a strong pef: to depe pu worst ido*
pis holi mon hi bounde uaste: & to pe justice him bro3te*
& tolde him hou he pulte him uorp: uor pe oper pat hi so3te-
Bel amy quap pe justice: sei wat is pi name*
& of wat kunne pu art icome: pat dost cure godes schame*
To pis demaunde quap St. Albon: ichulle ansuere sone*
Of wat kunne icham icome: pu hast lute to done*
Albon is my name iwis : & ic honore also*
God pat made al pat is : & euermore wole do*
A traitour quap pe justice: artou icome herto*
Ic schal tormenti al pi bodi : f ram toppe to pe to*
Hastou ihud atom pen pef: pat dop ous such schame*
& ipult uorp pi sulue: wreche in his name*
Honoure oure godes ic pe rede : & do hem sacrifice*
Oper ichulle pe tormenti : pat men schulle of pe agrise*
Uor pu specst quap St. Albon: peraboute pu spillest brep
I nele neuer pen deuel honoure: uor drede of pi dep*
Wrop was pe justice po: pis holi mon he nom*
Naked he let him uaste bynde: & 3af sone is dom*
Wip scourges is tormentors: leide on him inowe*
So uaste pat hi weri were : & al is bodi to drowe*
pe harde knottes gonne depe: in is fiesc wade-
pe more pat hi him bete: pe gladdore hi him made*
po pe luper justice isai: pat it was al uor no3t*
pat he ne mi3te fram ihesu crist: uor no ping torne is pO3t
He let him lede wippoute toun: & is heued smyte of sone*

ENGLISH VERSE LIVES 35

pe tormentors all 3are were: uorte don is bone-
Hi harlede him so vilich : pat schame it was to se*
Uorte hi come to pulke stude : pere he scholde imartred be-
To an urnynge broke hi com : pere hi moste on wade*
pe tormentors wode on abrod: & no strenpe ne made*
po pis holi mon puder com: pat water him wip drou*
& ouer pe broke he made an wei: druse & clene inou*
pat ouer he wende also: druse as it alonde were*
Al bihynde him euer pat water : smot to gadere pere*
& com ayn al as it was : po he com to londe*
Lord much is pi miste: hoso it wole understonde*
Hoso hadde mepencep such an hyne : to lede him about ilome-
He ne dorste no ping carie to wuch: water he come*
pe maister of pe tormentors : to warn he was bitake*
po he sei pis uayre miracle : pen deuel he gan uorsake*
& is suerd pat he bar an honde: wel uer fram him caste*
He uel to St. Albones uet : & criede mercy him uaste*
pat he moste uor him deie: oper bote it oper were*
pat he wip him in pe place: pen dep auenge pere*
Up an hul he wende an hei : as hi were asigned to*
Wip pis holi mon St. Albon: pe dede to do*
St. Albon wilnede afterward : up pe hul an hei*
He bihuld pat pere ne miste: no water come pere nei*
Our lord he bad myd gode herte: pat he sende is grace*
pat som water moste come : to him in pulke place*
po he hadde ido is orison : & our lord ibede*
pere sprong upon pe heie hul : a welle in pulke stede*
pe beste water pat mi$te be : pat 3ut ilast ic wene*
Euer was & euer worp: our lordes miste isene*
pis gode knyst pat bileuede on god: uor pat he say er
Wel more he criede po on him : uor pe miracle pere*
& wilnede much pat he moste: wip him deie pere*
So pat in our lordes name: bope imartred hi were
Ac pe tormentor pat smot of : St. Albones heued*
He ne dorste nost selpe pereof : him were better halbe bileued*
Uor po he smot of is heued : ri$t in pulke stounde
His eien uelle out of is heued: & perewip he uel to grounde
His bisete was lute pere: it uel adoun al bihinde*
He miyte segge wan he com horn: war her comep pe blynde*
Louerd muchel is pi miste: hoso wolde understonde*
pere bi pi wiperwynne: as men mi$te fonde
St. Albon imartred was : her in engelonde*
Biside pe toun of wynchestre : as ic understonde

36 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

J?ere is nou a chirch arered : & a gret abbei also*
J>at men clepej? St. Albones: as he was to de}?e ido*
Nou bidde we 3erne St. Albon: & ihesu crist wel uaste'
J?at we mote to J>e joie come: J?at euer schal laste." x

All the verse lives of saints, whether written in Latin,
Old, or Middle English, exhibit the same common traits.
They seize upon a few of the salient points in the lives of the
heroes and develop these usually with reference to the
degree of wonder which the incidents are likely to excite.
The purpose of them all is frankly to commemorate the holi
ness of their subjects, and to incite others to discipleship
and emulation. As biographical documents they are, in
common with all saints' lives, one-sided : they are religious
documents, detailing spiritual struggles for spiritual ends,
and if they pause to record anything of the mere physical,
earthly existence, they do so merely to emphasise the
spiritual, or, at worst, to gratify some whim of the writer.
It is true that, as the strictly spiritual purpose of these
lives receded into the background, and the narratives
became more and more stories to amuse and to aid in
whiling away the time, elements of humour and satire far
enough from the spiritual were introduced. Professor
Saintsbury finds the origin of Romance 2 in " the marriage
of the older East and the newer (non-classical) West
through the agency of the spread of Christianity and the
diffusion of the ' Saint's Life ' "; the Rev. Alfred Plummer,
as we have already seen, refers to saints' lives as " the
novels of all ranks of society." If we may accept these
views, we should have no difficulty in acknowledging that

> This version is a transcript of MS. Ashmole 43, ff. 1640-165^
In Early English Verse Lives of Saints another version, that of
MS. Laud 108, in 106 lines, is given. MS. Laud 108 is the oldest
of the various versions of the verse lives (c. 1280-90), but Ashmole
43 (c. 1 300) more properly represents the dialect in which the original
is composed.

J The English Novel, p. 3.

ENGLISH VERSE LIVES 37

in the lives of saints (prose and verse) we have the begin
nings of the " novel with a purpose." 1

Apart from these metrical lives of saints, the story of
English biography in verse is indeed brief. After a fashion,
The Mirror for Magistrates continued the work abandoned
by the monkish writers and catered to the appetites of those
who loved verse narratives somewhat after the fashion
of saints' lives. It is significant that John Lydgate
forms the connecting link between the two kinds of narra
tives. The Mirror for Magistrates grew out of Lydgate's
translation of The boke of lohan Bochas descruying the fall
of Princes, Princesses, and other Nobles, of which, in truth,
it was a continuation. " Whan the printer had purposed
with himself to printe Lidgates booke of the fall of Princes,"
thus writes William Baldwin, the original editor (1555-
1610) of The Mirror, " and had made pryuye therto many
both honourable and worshipfull, he was counsailed by
dyuers of them to procure to have the storye contynewed
from where as Bochas left, vnto this present time, chiefly
of such as Fortune had dalyed with here in this ylande:
which might be as a mirrour for al men as well nobles as
others." The title of the work, however, indicates that the
whole, while based upon biography, is not biographical in
purpose : The Mir our for Magistrates, wherein may bee
seene, by examples passed in this Re dime with how greeuous
plagues vices are punished in great Princes and Magistrates :

1 " They represent the Christian mythology as it has been formed
in the course of centuries. Some of them are historical or fixed by
tradition; others are the result of fiction, typical of the Christian
hero. The style of these legends is, no doubt, coarse and rude to the
modern taste; but it is popular, adapted to the subject, to the public,
and to the occasion. The narrative is generally happy and well con
ducted. . . . Everywhere we find dispersed sallies of wit and sarcasm
which spare no class, no sex, not the clergy itself. So the Collection
deserves attention, not only from an hagiologic, but also from a
poetic and literary point of view." Early English Verst Lives of
Saints, Introduction, No. 87, E.E.T.S. Original Series.

38 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

and how frail and vnstable worldly prosperity is found, where
Fortune seemeth most highly to favour. Sackville, in the
Induction, also states plainly the didactic purpose of the
book :

" My busie mynde presented vnto mee
Such fall of peeres as in the realme had bee :
That oft I wisht some would their woes descryue,
To warne the rest whome fortune left a Hue."

Thus it is that The Mirror for Magistrates, called forth by
Lydgate's translation of Boccaccio's book, plainly bio
graphical in principle, and continuing the popular verse-
narrative literature, is only so far biography as is necessary
to " point a moral " and " to warne the rest."

The Mirror for Magistrates is, for still another reason,
closely connected with the story of biography in verse.
Among its " examples " we find Thomas Churchyard's
legend, founded on the narrative of Cardinal Wolsey's life,
relating " How Thomas Wolsey did arise unto great
authority and gouernment, his manner of life, pompe, and
dignity, and how he fell downe into great disgrace, and was
arrested of high treason." * Churchyard's contribution is
written in a seven-line stanza of decasyllabic verse,
rhyming ababbcc. In 1599 there appeared The Life and
Death of Thomas Wolsey, Cardinall. Divided into three parts :
His Aspiring, Triumph and Death. By Thomas Storer,
Student of Christ Church in Oxford. This work, written after
the model of Churchyard's legend, may more properly
claim a place in the annals of biography.

Of Sir Thomas Storer (1571-1604) but little is known
beyond the facts that he became a student of Christ Church
in 1587, proceeded to the degree of B.A. in 1591, and that
of M.A. in 1594, and is represented by a number of lyrics in
England 9 s Parnassus (1600). His fame rests chiefly upon

1 Haslewood's edition, vol. ii. pp. 484-501.

ENGLISH VERSE LIVES 39

the metrical Life of Wolsey. Anthony Wood records that
he was " had in great renown for his most excellent vein in
poesy," and makes mention of a eulogy bestowed upon
him by Alberic Gentilis after that learned doctor had
perused the Wolsey poem. We are reminded that Storer
" is not to be confounded with such as only wrote thus
because it was the mode," and that testimonies such as
those recorded by Wood, " pronounced in the age of
Spenser, of Raleigh, and Sackville, are not to be regarded
as trivial praise." l

In the Life and Death of Wolsey, Storer gives no new
facts. He follows closely the prose Life of Wolsey by George
Cavendish, and the account given in Holinshed, selecting
" from the known details of so eventful a life such passages
as form the best theme for poetical ornament or moral
reflection." We are not, therefore, surprised to find that
later writers a commend the historical veracity of Storer's
poem. Of the three parts into which the whole is divided,
the Wolseius aspirans comprises one hundred and one
stanzas; the Wolseius triumphans, eighty-nine; and the
Wolseius moriens, fifty-one the stanza form being that of
Churchyard's Wolsey legend. The work exhibits both the
good and the bad qualities of the poetry of the age. The
classical machinery and allusions, the elaboration, the
obscurity " arising from the inveterate love of conceits,"

1 Introduction to 1826 edition, Life and Death of Wolsey, pp. xi-xii.

1 In a letter (Dec. 31, 1705) to Thomas Hearne, Thomas Smith
wrote: " I believe some good historical remarks may be collected
from Storer's books, of the Life and Death of Cardinal Wolsey, in
English verse . . . the poets of that age for the most part not
corrupting the truth of fact with the additions of phansy and fable,
but thinking that they had done their part well enough if they had
put their collections into rithme." Letters by Eminent Persons, vol.
i. p. 145. This is the letter erroneously attributed to John Aubrey
in the article on Storer in Diet. Nat. Biog. In the Letters, vol. i. p. 147,
the remark is also made that Shakespeare probably took the story
of Wolsey's fall from this source.

40 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

contrast strongly with the ease and smoothness of versifi
cation, the occasional simplicity and dignity, and a vivid
imagery that now and then approaches poetry of high
quality. The whole takes the form of a story addressed by
Wolsey to the two Muses, Clio and Melpomene. To Clio are
addressed the "Aspiring" and the "Triumph"; to
Melpomene the " tragicke mone " of the " Dying." In
effect, the work is a monologue. It is worth while to quote
somewhat at length from the poem. Treating as it does of a
great subject, related as it is to the work of Cavendish and
Holinshed, necessarily to be thought of in connexion with
Shakespeare's King Henry Fill., possessing a merit of its
own, and standing all but unique in biographical history,
it has a claim upon our attention, which, apart from this
combination of circumstances, could not be accorded to it.
The narrative introduces us at once into the presence of
Wolsey and the two Muses :

" Betweene two Muses, in the deepe of night,
There sate a reverend Father, full of woe :
They gaz'd on him, and from that dismall sight
A kind remorse was willing them to go ;
But cruell fortune would not have it so :
Fortune, that erst his pride had overthrowne,
Would have her power by his misfortune knowne.

" Where fruitfull Thames salutes the learned shoare,
Was this grave Prelate and the Muses placed;

And by those waves he builded had before
A royall house, with learned Muses graced,
But by his death unperfect and defaced:

' O blessed walls, and broken towers, (quoth he)

That never rose to fall againe with me !

" ' To thee, first sister of the learned nine,

Historians' goddesse, patronesse of fame
Entombing worthies in a living shrine,
Celestial Clio 1 Clio, peerlesse dame,
My storie's truth and triumph I will frame;

ENGLISH VERSE LIVES 41

My storie's simple truth, if ought remaine,
Enrich my legend with thy sacred veine.

" ' The sad discourse of my untimely fall,

O tragique Muse, shall pierce thy sullen cares,
Melpomene ! though nothing can apall

Thy heart, obdurate in contempt of feares;
My, my laments shall make thee write in tearea,
If, 'mong thy scrolles of antique majestic
Thou deigne to place a Prelate's tragedie.' "

In the story of the introduction of the Cardinal to
Henry VII., Storer puts into the mouth of Wolsey a char
acterisation of Bishop Fox of Winchester, which has been
much admired:

" ' A man made old to teach the worth of age,

Patriarke-like, and grave in all designes ;
One that had finish'd a long pilgrimage :
Sparing in diet, abstinent from wines,
His sinews small as threeds or slender lines;
Lord of the citty, where with soleme rites
The old prince Arthur feasted with his Knights.

" ' He saw my gifts were such as might deserve,
He knew his life was drawing to an end,

He thought no meanes so likely to preserve
His fame, with time and envy to contend,
As to advance some faithful-serving friend,

That, living, might in time to come record

Th' immortall praise of his deceased lord.

" ' He brought me first in presence of the King,
Who then allotted me his Chaplain's place;
My eloquence did such contentment bring
Unto his eares, that never prince did grace
Poore chaplaine more, nor lowly priest embrace
Dread soveraigne so : for nature teacheth ever
Who loves preferment needes must love the giver.' "

The story of Wolsey's mission to arrange a treaty of
marriage between Henry VII. and Margaret of Savoy,
daughter of the Emperor Maximilian, who was at that
time in Flanders, is thus told :

42 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

' ' Next, who but I was sent Embassadour,

With Europe's greatest monarch to intreat,
Caesar of Almaine, German's emperour;
In Belgia keeping his imperiall seat,
To handle matters of importance great:
My hap was such, the king could hardly ghesse
Which pleasde him more, my speede or good successe.

" ' The Argonauticke vessel never past

With swifter course along the Colchan maine

Then my small barke, with faire and speedy blast,
Convay'd me forth, and reconvay'd againe.
Thrice had Arcturus driv'n his restlesse waine,

And heav'ns bright lampe the day had thrice reviv'd,

From last departure till I first arriv'd.

" ' The king, not deeming I had yet beene gone,
Was angry for my long surmiz'd delay.

I tolde his majestic, that all was done,
And more than all ; and did his pardon pray,
That I beyond commission went astray;

And could have wisht for ever to be chid,

With answer to content as then I did.' "

When Wolsey has won his way into the heart of Henry
VII., and is nearing the zenith of his career, Storer makes
him speak in this manner:

" ' Transplanted thus into a fertile spring,

And watred from above with heav'nly dew,
Enlightned with the presence of my king,
My branches waxed large and faire of hew;
And all about fresh buddes of honour grew,
Garlands of lordships, blossomes of degree,
White roddes of office, keyes of knightly fee.' "

After we have followed the aspiring and the triumph of
the great Cardinal, we hear him confessing to Melpomene
the frailty of human fortune :

" ' With honorable burdens I have tir'de

My fortune's wheele, that it can turne no more;
The leases of my lordships are expir'de,

My lamp burnt out, poore metaphor's great store,
To trope my miseries my heart growes sore.

ENGLISH VERSE LIVES 43

Help me, for I have surfeited of late,
Some Paracelsian of a sublimate.

" ' Sublim'd indeede, but all the purest gone,

The treasure is in others coffers laid ;
Now write, Melpomene, my tragicke mone;
Call Neroe's learned maister, he will ayd
Thy failing quill, with what himself once sayd:
Never did fortune greater instance give,
In what fraile state prowd magistrates do live.' "

In this extremity, the fallen prelate is yet not without
hope; with these words the " sad discourse " ends and
silence reigns " in the deepe of night " :

" ' Yet I that durst offend, dare hope for grace

Beyond all reason, contrary to sence;
Salvation heavy sinners may embrace,
If God remit the guilt of deep offence;
Let all the world hang in their own suspence;
The world is but a poynt, whereon men dwell,
And I am at a poynt what they can tell.

" ' If any billes of new inditement come,

At the King's bench in heav'n I must appeere,
Long since arrested, now expect my doome;
Sue where you list, but I must answere there,
Die and accuse me in that hemisphere;
Nor flesh, nor bloud my declaration telles.
Mine owne accuser in my bosome dwelles.

" ' In whose great temple, richly beautified,

Pav'd al with starres disperst on saphyre flowre,

The clarke is a pure angel sanctified ;

The Judge, our true Messias, full of powre;
The Apostles, his assistants every houre:

The jury, Saints; the verdict, Innocent;

The sentence " Come, ye blessed, to my tent! "

" ' The speare that pierc'd his side, the writing pen;

Christ's bloud the inke, red inke for princes name;
The vailes great breach, the miracle for men;
The sight is shew of them that, long dead, came
From their old graves, restor'd to living frame;
And that last signet, passing all the rest,
Our soules discharg'd by Consummatum est I

44 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

" ' Here endlesse joy is their perpetuall cheare;
Their exercise, sweete songs of many parts ;
Angells the quire, whose symphonic to heare,
Is able to provoke conceiving harts
To misconceive of al inticing arts ;
The dittie, prayse; the subject is the Lord,
That tunes their gladsome spirit to this accord.

" ' Stay then, till some good meteor appeare;

Or let the sunne exhale me, vapor-wise;
Stirre Charles' wayne, and see the coast be cleare;

Let no congealed clowdes or mistes arise

Along the mooving circle of the skies :
Or rather, shut up all in darksome night,
That none may see my silent secret flight.' "

It has several times been suggested that Shakespeare
may have had the subject of Wolsey's fall brought to his
attention by this poem. However that may be, it is worth
while to look at the manner in which both writers have
borrowed from what is undoubtedly the common source.
This pathetic sentence from Cavendish's Life of Wolsey
" ' Well, well, master Kingston,' quoth he, ' I see the matter
against me how it is framed; but if I had served God as
diligently as I have done the king, he would not have given
me over in my grey hairs ' " was copied verbatim by Holin-
shed, from whom Shakespeare doubtless borrowed it and
thus introduced it into King Henry Fill. :

\ " Had I but served my God with half the zeal
I served my king, he would not in mine age
Have left me naked to mine enemies." .

Storer's version of the sentence runs :

" ' And had the dutie to my God bin such,
As it was faithful serving to the king,
Then had my conscience, free from feare or touch,
Mounted aloft on cherubins swift wing,
In holy consort borne apart to sing.
That now with heavy weight is overspread,
And with my body wishes to be dead.' "

ENGLISH VERSE LIVES 45

Unequal in quality as the poem is, and defaced by
faults of obscurity and affectation, it yet repays those who
take the trouble to read it. Its intimate connexion with the
narratives of Cavendish and Holinshed, and through them
to the work of Shakespeare, must, apart from any merit
of its own, keep it in remembrance. Its disregard and
rejection of every detail save those which lend themselves
to the progress of verse narrative clearly indicate the dis
advantages of poetry as a biographical medium.

Verse lives exerted no influence on the development of
later English biography. The verse lives of saints, although
they constitute an interesting phase in the development of
hagiology, nevertheless, in the evolution of biography in
general, represent an extinct branch, and their influence is
negligible. Biography in the etymological sense does
not readily lend itself to treatment in verse ; the story of a
life is not the story of a few great moments, and the sup
pression or rejection of all that goes to make up by far the
greater part of that life. The history of the form proves this.
Verse lives of saints are interesting relics of the past.
Storer s metrical Life of Wolsey stands alone in biography.
Tusser, whose verse " Life " is recognised as the first auto
biography in English, waited more than two centuries
before Wordsworth kept him company. If the space here
allotted to verse lives should seem to any to be out of pro
portion to their value, we can only plead that their very
incompetency and failure seem to call for a treatment more
extended than their influence on the general development
of the course of biography would merit.

46 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

CHAPTER IV

THE PERIOD OF NEW BEGINNINGS IN ENGLISH (1500-1700)

DURING the time included within the limits of this chapter,
the old habits of life-writing disappeared and the new
beginnings were made of biography in the English tongue.
The bonds of the old biographical methods loosened almost
imperceptibly; the transition to English was gradual. Not
withstanding the fact that many lives of saints in prose
and verse were written in English, the supremacy of the
Latin language relaxed slowly, maintaining itself, in truth,
until far into the eighteenth century. As the interest in
hagiology declined, a new interest in antiquarian research
arose, and led to the production of many ^collections which
are fundamentally biographical. At first, as was inevitable
in such a period, these collections were written in Latin.
Later on, similar collections were published in English;
but it was practically a century after the publication of the
first biographical collection in English before Latin was
abandoned by the writers of these compilations. These
products of the new antiquarian spirit form one of the most
characteristic features of this period.

To John Boston (fi. 1410), a Benedictine monk of the
monastery of St. Edmunds-Bury, Suffolk, is generally
ascribed the honour of beginning this antiquarian research
and compilation. Boston, " who gave the first example of
that method which succeeding writers pursued," examined
the libraries of all the abbeys in England, made an alpha
betical list of the books contained therein, and gave brief
notices of the authors. Those who continued the method

NEW BEGINNINGS IN ENGLISH 47

in Latin, with varying degrees of improvement, were John
Leland (d. 1552), appointed King's Antiquary in 1533,
" the first and indeed the last that bore that honourable
office"; John Bale (1495-1563); and John Pits (1560-
1616); followed later by Thomas Dempster (1579 -1625),
who professed to commemorate the Scotch authors; Sir
James Ware (1594-1666), who recorded notices of authors
born or preferred in Ireland; William Cave (1637-1713),
who, in his ambitious Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Historia
LiUraria^ begins his list of writers with Jesus Christ " on
account of the celebrated epistle which he wrote to
Abgarus " (" quam ob celebrem illam ad Abgarum Edes-
senum epistolam"); and Thomas Tanner (1674-1735).
Tanner's great work, which embodies the result of forty
years' labour, was edited by Dr. David Wilkins, and
published in 1748, under the title Bibliotheca Britannico-
Hibernica. The Bibliotheca, based upon the work of Leland,
Bale, and Pits, and containing the substance of Boston's
unpublished manuscript, fitly represents the culmination
of the original group of compilers. It was the last of such
works published in Latin.

The works * of Leland, Bale, and Pits have not been
generally accessible to students, most of the information in
regard to them being taken at second-hand. Perhaps for
this reason they have been rated higher than they deserve.
Examination shows the information which they contain to
be scant, fanciful, inaccurate, prejudiced, even ludicrous. In
referring to the books, one is amused to find Leland start
ing out with a dissertation on the Druids; Bale beginning

1 Inasmuch as the works of antiquarians and compilers of diction
aries of biography are limited to notices and sketches of writers, it
has been deemed best not to discuss them at length in the text, but
to list them in the appendix, pp. 287-96, where they are briefly sum
marised. At most, the early works of this character represent but
the growing interest in biographical study.

48 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

his catalogue of British writers with Samothes Gigas,
who lived not long after the deluge; and Pits beginning
with the mythical Brutus. This fantastic element was
pointed out as far back as 1662 by Thomas Fuller. " Being
to handle this subject [of writers]," remarks Fuller, " let
not the reader expect that I will begin their catalogue from
fabulous antiquity, or rather fanciful fabels. For if the
first Century of J. Bale or J. Pits their British writers were
garbled,, four parts oijive would be found to be trash, such
as

1. Samothes Gigas

2. Magus Samotheus

3. Sarron Magius

4. Druys Sarronius

5. Barbus Druydius

6. Albion Mareoticus

7. Brytus Julius

8. Gerion Augur

9. Aquila Septonius

10. Perdix Prasagus

11. Cambra Formosa

12. Plenidius Sagax, etc.

Of these some never were men, others (if men) never were
writers, others (if writers) never left works continuing to
our age, though some manuscript-mongers may make as
if they had perused them. It is well they had so much
modesty as not to pretend inspection into the Book of life,
seeing all other books have come under their omnividencu" 1
These early compilers had few scruples about borrowing
from predecessors without giving credit to the sources, or
about adapting information in any way to suit their pur
poses. Fuller again, in his humorous manner, calls attention
to this fact in a famous parallelism which well embodies the
characteristics of the three worthies whom he mentions.
It is in the notice of Pits that Fuller speaks out, saying
that " he [Pits] wrote many volumes of several subjects,
one of the Apostolical men, another of the kings and
bishops in England, but because he survived not to see
them set forth, he was as good as his word, mecum
morientur & sepelientur, with him they died and were
buried; onely that his book is brought to light which is

1 History of the Worthies of England, chap. x. p. 26 (ed. 1662).

NEW BEGINNINGS IN ENGLISH 49

intituled, de Illustribus Angliae Scriptoribus, a subject
formerly handled by many, so that some stick not to say:

J. Leland is the industrious BEE working ~\

J. Bale is the angry WASP stinging I all." *

J. Pits is the idle DRONE stealing

These antiquarians cannot be entirely ignored in a discus-
lion of English biography, however, if for no other reason
than that of the pernicious influence which they exerted
on those who followed them, copied their inaccuracies, mis-
statements, false inferences, and fanciful imaginings, and
thus perpetuated these errors even to modern times. In
his exhaustive Studies in Chaucer,* Professor Thomas R.
Lounsbury treats at length of the influence of these three
men on Chaucerian scholarship, an influence which con
tinued until long past the time of Samuel Johnson. What
Professor Lounsbury has demonstrated to be true of
biographical notices of Chaucer well down into the nine
teenth century, could without doubt be proved, to a
greater or less degree, of most English biography to the time
of James Boswell.

And yet the work of these early antiquarians even
of Boston, Leland, Bale, and Pits is not entirely without
yalue. The gaps in English biography not to speak of
those in the early history of Great Britain are numerous
enough and wide enough as it is. The destruction wrought
by the incursions of the Danes and attendant upon the
Norman Conquest blotted out much that we should like
to know. In the sixteenth century, the dissolution, from

1 History of the Worthies of England, " Hant-shire," p. 14.

1 No student should fail to read the first two chapters of vol. i.
Professor Lounsbury is severe in his criticism of those who attempted
early notices of Chaucer, yet his severity is apparently justified.
These two chapters are also valuable to those interested in methods
of biography.

So ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

1537 to 1539, of the greater monasteries, followed in 1545 by
the seizure of all other religious foundations, helped to blot
out much of what little remained in the way of historical
and literary documents. That we know as much as we do
of the early literary history of Great Britain is due in
no small part to these unscholarly, uncritical, credulous
antiquarians and compilers. It is something to their credit
that they recognised and bewailed the carelessness of the
times. 1 All this is said with due regard to the worthlessness
of much of their work. There is, moreover, it cannot be
denied, a certain satisfaction in having only an echo of
what may be an historic truth. 2 And how much of scholarly
research and disputation might have been done away with
had these pioneers been scrupulously exact !

Thomas Fuller (1608-1661) edited the first biographical
volume published in the English language (1651), a work
bearing the title of Abel Redevivus : or the dead yet speaking ;
The Lives and Deaths of the Moderne Divines. This book is
little more than hack-work " digested into one volume for

1 Thus John Bale in his Dedication of Leyland's Laboryouse
Journey, etc., to Edward VI., 1549 : " Among all the nacions in
whome I have wandered for the knowledge of thynges (most benygne
souerayne) I have found nene so negligent and untoward, as I have
found England in the due serch of theyr auncyent historyes, to the
syngulare fame and bewtye thereof. Thys haue I (as it were) wyth
a wofulnesse of hert sense my tendre youth bewayled. ... If your
most noble father of excellent memory, Kynge Henry the viii had
not of a godly zele, by specyall Commyssyon, directed maystre
Johan Leylande, to ouersee a nombre of theyre sayde libraries, we
had lost infynyte treasure of knowledge, by the spoyle, which anon
afterfolowedof their due suppression." Centuries before this, Nennius,
in the introduction to the History of the Britons, lamented thus :
" I, Nennius, disciple of St. Elbotus, have endeavoured to write
some extracts which the dulness of the British nation had cast
away, because teachers had no knowledge, nor gave any informa
tion in their books about the island of Britain."

a As for example : " Then it was, that the magnanimous Arthur,
with all the kings and military force of Britain, fought against the
Saxons. And though there were many more noble than himself,
yet he was twelve times chosen their commander, and was as often
conqueror." Nennius, History of the Britons.

NEW BEGINNINGS IN ENGLISH 51

the benefit and satisfaction of all those that desire to be
acquainted with the paths of piety and virtue," as the title
page further informs the reader. The manner in which the
somewhat more than one hundred sketches were put
together is thus described by Fuller in " The Epistle to the
Reader " : " As for the makers thereof, they are many :
some done by Doctor Featly, now at rest with God, viz.,
The lives of Jewell, Reynolds, Abbot, and diverse others.
Some by that reverend and learned Divine Master Gataker,
viz., The lives of Peter Martyr, Bale, Whitgift, Ridley,
Whitaker, Parker, and others. Doctor Willets life by
Doctor Smith, his son-in-law. Erasmus his life by the
reverend Bishop of Kilmore. The life of Bishop Andrewes,
by the judicious and industrious, my worthy friend
Master Isaackson: and my meanness wrote all the lives of
Berengarius, Hus, Hierom of Prague, Archbishop Cranmer,
Master Fox, Perkins, Junius, etc. Save the. most part of the
poetry was done by Master Quarles, father and son, suffi
ciently known for their abilities therein. The rest the
stationer got transcribed out of Mr. Holland and other
authors." The poetry to which reference is made consists
of a summary appended to each sketch. As the first
biographical collection in English, the book is worthy of
remembrance; it has, in addition, an intrinsic value of its
own. It is worth the while of any reader to turn to these
sketches. They are not dull; on the contrary, they are full
of interest; they are rabidly partisan; they are glowing
with honest praise or hot indignation; they are full of
unconscious humour. The volume, even though not
entirely the work of Fuller, was no unfit forerunner of his
later biographical collection, The History of the Worthies
of England.

'The History of the Worthies was published in 1662. " The
matter of this work, for the most part," wrote John Fuller,

52 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

the author's son, in the dedication, " is the description of
such native and peculiar commodities as the several counties
of your Kingdom [the volume was dedicated to Charles II.]
afford, with a revival of the memories of such persons which
have in each county been eminent for parts or learning."
William Oldys speaks somewhat contemptuously of the
biographical portion: " [Fuller's] Lives are in effect no
more than short characters, interspersed now and then
with remarkable stories which are not always to be de
pended upon, and there is very little new in him: Bale,
Fox, and Stowe are his principal authors, from whom he
takes plentifully ... a fanciful, rather than a faithful
writer, very little concerned about dates or circumstances,
and, if one might be indulged for once in his manner of
speaking, rather desirous of making his readers merry than
wise." l We may, indeed, agree entirely with the last
statement; Fuller had set before himself as one of his
objects in writing, " to entertain the reader with delight."
" I confess," he writes, " the subject is but dull in itself,
to tell the time and place of men's birth, and deaths, their
names, with the names and number of their books, and
therefore this bare sceleton of Time, Place, and Person,
must be fleshed with some pleasant passages. To this
intent I have purposely interlaced (not as meat, but as
condiment) many delightful stories, that so the reader if
he do not arise (which I hope and desire) Religiosior or
Doctior, with more piety or learning, at least he may depart
Jucundior, with more pleasure and lawful delight." *
Fuller's Worthies is one of the most humorous books ever
written ; one is richly rewarded for dipping into almost any
page. The volume was not put together after any scientific
method of research; it belongs to the " old school "; but
it preserves a vast amount of information expressed in an
1 In Preface to Biographia Britannica. * Worthies, p. 2.

NEW BEGINNINGS IN ENGLISH 53

original manner. The literature of biography would suffer
a great loss were it deprived of the Worthies.

Fuller is " very little concerned about dates or circum
stances," remarks Oldys, and the remark is just; he took
all too little pains in these particulars. " But," writes
Oldys elsewhere in the Biographia Britannica, in a vein not
unworthy of Fuller himself, " though he looked upon dates
as so many little sparkling gems in history, that would
reflect the clearest and most sudden light a great ways off,
he still found or thought them very slippery ware, liable,
by the smallest and most imperceptible variations, to lead
us greatly astray from truth; and speaks of chronology in
one of his books, as of a very surly little animal, that was
apt to bite the fingers of those who handle it with greater
familiarity than was absolutely necessary; yet he knew
there was no giving any satisfactory intelligence without it,
especially in the writing of lives. But it was a general or
fashionable neglect especially in the more polite and ornate
writers, as if they thought that arithmetical figures would
look like so many scars in the sleek face of their rhetorical
phrase." 1 In 1811, when John Nichols edited an edition
of Fuller's Worthies, he added this note at the point where
he supplied the date of Shakespeare's death: " It is a little
remarkable that Dr. Fuller should not have been able to
have filled up this blank; which I should have done silently
(as I have done in numberless other instances) but that I
think it right to notice how little was then known of the
personal history of the Sweet Swan of Avon, who died
April 23., 1616." The omission of this date by Fuller is a
sufficient comment upon both the state of knowledge during
the century and the methods of biographical compilers.

Fuller's biographical works were followed by many others
written in English on a somewhat similar plan. Of these
1 Article " Fuller," vol. iii. pp. 2049-69.

54 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

we can do little more than make brief mention. In 1675,
Edward Phillips, Milton's nephew, published Ibeatrum
Poetarum, brief sketches of ancient and modern poets.
William Winstanley's Lives of English Poets followed in
1687. Anthony Wood's great work, the Aihenae Oxonienses,
" an exact history of all the writers and bishops who
have had their education in ... Oxford . . ." appeared in
1690-92. In 1691 was printed Gerard Langbaine's English
Dramatic Poets, of which work a continuation and doubtful
" improvement " was set forth by Charles Gildon in 1698.
The seventeenth century likewise produced a remarkably
large number of " Characters," or brief sketches after the
manner of those written by Theophrastus. In the hands of
such men as Ben Jonson, Joseph Hall, Sir Thomas Over-
bury, and John Earle the character-sketch was assiduously
cultivated, becoming in fact one of the most distinctive
and prolific literary forms of the century. Earle's Micro-
cosmography (1628), one of the most popular collections of
such sketches, apparently passed through five editions in
the first two years of its publication, and five more during
the life-time of its author. Dr. Philip Bliss, who in 1811
edited an edition of Earle's work, added a list of fifty-seven
characters and books of characters, all of which, with one
exception in 1567, were published between 1605-1700. In
1855, Doctor Bliss stated that this list in his own inter
leaved copy had grown four-fold. Various explanations of
the popularity of this form have been given. It has been
pointed out for us that " the literature of Protestant
England passed, about the time of James I., from the
exuberant delicious fancifulness of youth into the sober de-
liberativeness of manhood. The age of romantic chivalry, of
daring discovery, of surpassing danger, was passing away.
A time of wonderful thoughtfulness, of strong research, of
national quiet had come. Learning had become common to

NEW BEGINNINGS IN ENGLISH 55

most educated persons. . . . The thinkers influenced the
people. The words Precisian and Puritan, creations of this
epoch, testify to the growing seriousness of the nation. In
those earlier years of Puritanism especially, and generally
throughout the seventeenth century, there was a strong
passion for analysis of human character. Men delighted in
introspection. Essays and characters took the place of the
romance of the former century." l In the opinion of Pro
fessor Hugh Walker, " if ever we are entitled to speak of a
literary form as answering to something in the spirit of the
age wherein it appears, we are so entitled in the case of the
character- writers. For they are precisely the prose analogue
of the metaphysical poets. They have the same merits
and defects, they show the same interests, and they rise,
flourish, and decline just at the same time." 2

The character-sketches were, without doubt, one mani
festation of the spirit which was aiding in the evolution of
biography. They were, however, but a passing phase of the
spirit, and contributed inappreciably, if at all, to the
development of biography. The distinction between the
character-sketch and biography has been well emphasised:
" In order to establish the claim of the Characters to be
considered as a unique production, it is perhaps necessary
to point out that they in no way resemble the ordinary
biographies of history. These, of course, have reference to
definite individuals, and must of necessity exhibit personal
peculiarities, which can only belong to the subject of the
intended portraiture. The present sketches [those of
Theophrastus], on the contrary, are generic, not individual;
they represent classes, not particular persons; they are
imaginary, not real." 3 Another writer remarks that

1 Arber's English Reprints, Earle's Micro-cosmographie, pp. 7-8.
1 See all of chap. iii. of Professor Walker's admirable volume,
The English Essay and Essayists.

' John G. Sheppard, Theophrasti Characters, pp. 5-6.

56 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

" Characters deal with the passing, external, accidental
aspects of men," and points out that of Earle's sketches,
some are " delineations of human nature, common to all
time; others are incisive descriptions of ' characters ' and
scenes of the writer's age, which have now passed away." *
We cannot dismiss the character-sketch, however, without
calling attention to the manner in which it eventually
developed relations to both biography and fiction. " The
type of sketch set by Jonson and Overbury," writes Pro
fessor W. L. Cross, " was a good deal modified by the fifty
and more character -writers who succeeded them. Not
infrequently as a frame to the portrait was added a little
piece of biography or adventure. . . . The treatment of
the character sketch by Steele and Addison in the Spectator
(171 1-12) was highly original. They drew portraits of repre
sentative Englishmen, and brought them together in con
versation in a London Club. They conducted Sir Roger
de Coverley through Westminster Abbey, to the play-house,
to Vauxhall, into the country to Coverley and the assizes;
they incidentally took a retrospective view of his life, and
finally told the story of his death. When they had done
this, they had not only created one of the best defined
characters in our prose literature, but they had almost
transformed the character-sketch into a novel of London
and commercial life." *

The biographical collections, which were so characteristic
of the seventeenth century, stimulated the production of
many similar " dictionaries " in the eighteenth century.
Although the inclusion of these later works exceeds the
date limits of this chapter, logically mention of them
belongs here; for in purpose, spirit, and method they are
at one with their prototypes. Giles Jacob's Poetical

1 Arber's English Reprints, Earle's Micro-cosmographie, p. 9.
8 Development of the English Novel, pp. 24-5.

NEW BEGINNINGS IN ENGLISH 57

Register (1719 or 1720); the Biographia Britannic a (1747-
66); the Lives of the Poets (1753) bearing the name of
Theophilus Gibber, but for the most part the work of
Robert Shiels, a Scotchman, one of Johnson's amanuenses
in the Dictionary work; Horace Walpole's Catalogue of
Royal and Noble Authors (1758); the Biographical Dictionary
(1761); David Erskine Baker's Companion to the Play
house (1764); and Doctor John Berkenhout's Biographia
Liter aria (1777), make up the contribution of the eigh
teenth century to this form of biography. Of these works,
the Biographia Britannica is by far the best; it is the first
work, indeed, in the English language, which deserves to
rank as a careful and somewhat complete biographical
dictionary. It exhibits commendable care in its attempt to
exhaust all known sources of information. With William
Oldys as its first editor it could scarcely fail to be in advance
of its kind. It stands between the old method of careless
compiling and the new scientific spirit of the nineteenth
century. At least two literary men read and studied it
eagerly. Its volumes were the companions of Sir Egerton
Brydges during his youth; he tells us that he began to
read them as early as his eighth or ninth year. Macaulay
wrote that on his voyage to India in 1834 ^ e rea d, among
other volumes, " the seven thick folios of the Biographia
Britannica" x

The work of these industrious compilers is related rather
to one branch of biographical writing that of dictionaries
of biography, a branch which has developed and flourished
extensively during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries
than to the biography proper, the separate, complete,
approximately exhaustive account of one person. The
way of the biographical collection is not the way to the
production of great life-narrative; especially is this true
1 Trevelyan's Life of Macaulay, vol. i. p. 371.

58 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

of the way of the old biographical collections. Some
have expressed regret that Thomas Heywood (1575 ?-i65o),
the dramatist, did not carry out the design to which he
refers (p. 245) in the Hierarchy of the Blessed Angels (1635)
of writing " the lives of all the poets, foreign and modern,
from the first before Homer to the novissimi and last, of
what nation or language soever; so far as any history or
chronology " would give him warrant. His failure to do so
has undoubtedly left us little the poorer, for in all likelihood
his work would have been much like those produced later
by Fuller, Langbaine, Gildon, and Jacob. Indeed, we can
form some notion of what his work might have been from
a remark of his in An Apology for Actors (1612). " Here,"
he writes, " I might take opportunity to reckon up all our
English writers and compare them with the Greek, French,
Italian, and Latin poets, not only in their pastoral, histori
cal, elegiacal, and heroical poems, but in their tragical and
comical subjects, but it was my chance to happen on the
like learnedly done by an approved good scholar in a book
called Wifs Commonwealth, to which treatise I wholly
refer you." We may admit that Heywood might have
preserved something of worth, but the way of Francis
Mere's discourse in Palladis Tamia l is not the way to the
production of a promising biographical collection. The
labour of most of these antiquarians and compilers from
Leland to the writers of the Biographia Britannica is marked
by a confirmed tendency to borrow and adapt blindly from
predecessors; to hand on information without careful
investigation; to accept almost any kind of hearsay report.
It is interesting to follow the sketch of one author as it is
passed from one of these writers to another; such a com-

1 Mere's " A Comparative Discourse of our English Poets, with the
Greek, Latin, and Italian Poets " occurs in Palladis Tamia : Wit's
Treasury ; Being the Second Part of Wit's Commonwealth, pp. 279-87.

NEW BEGINNINGS IN ENGLISH 59

parison will do much to give a student a conception of the
value of these primitive methods. 1

Among these antiquarians and compilers one deserves
particular mention for his excellent conception of what
biography should be. It is true that, on account of tempera
mental reasons, he failed to carry out his notions, and
served chiefly as a collector of information for a hard and
ill-natured taskmaster. He had within him, however, the
promise of better things. John Aubrey (1626-1697) was
one of those happy-go-lucky individuals who give very
little attention to their own affairs, yet attempt much to
oblige their friends; just the kind of man, in fact, who is
his own worst enemy. Until he had squandered his estate,
he had been an extensive and eager buyer of books and
manuscripts. He seems never to have lost his interest in
literary affairs, particularly in literary gossip. Anthony
Wood secured his aid in collecting materials for the
Atbenae Oxonienses, and upon the work done for Wood,
Aubrey's fame chiefly rests. Aubrey's Brief Lives, as they
have been termed, are only short and disconnected notes
collected in any way by reading, from gossip at coffee
houses and clubs, at the tables of his literary friends. The
substance of them was incorporated in the different editions
of the Atbenae Oxonienses (1691-1721), and Aubrey's
manuscripts were neglected until 1813, when careless
extracts were published in a collection of Letters Written
by Eminent Persons, and Lives of Eminent Men by John
Aubrey " from the originals in the Bodleian Library and
the Ashmolean Museum." Not until 1898 was Aubrey's
complete work made accessible to the public in the careful
edition of the Rev. Andrew Clark. " Aubrey's lives,"

1 In the appendix, pp. 302-10, different sketches of Shakespeare
are printed for the purpose of such comparison. Professor Lounsbury
and Eleanor Prescott Hammond, as has been pointed out, have
followed the course of Chaucer's early biographies.

6o ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

remarks Mr. Clark, " supply an inviting field for comment,
correction, and addition. But, even so treated, they will
never be a biographical dictionary. Their value lies not in
statement of bibliographical or other facts, but in their
remarkably vivid personal touches, in what Aubrey had
seen himself and what his friends had told him." 1

Two extracts from letters 2 written by Aubrey to Wood
give information as to Aubrey's own conception of the work
he had in hand. Under date of June 15, 1680, he writes:

" I doe not here repeat anything already published (to the best of
my remembrance) and I fancy myselfe all along discourseing with
you; alledgeing those of my relations and acquaintance (as either
you knew or have heard of) ad faciendum fidem : so that you make
me to renew my acquaintance with my old and deceased friends, and
to rejuvenescent (as it were) which is the pleasure of old men. 'Tis
pitty that such minutes had not been taken 100 yeares since or more:
for want whereof many worthy men's names and notions are swal-
lowd-up in oblivion; as much of these also would [have been], had
it not been through your investigation: and perhaps this is one of
the usefullest pieces that I have scribbeld."

" I remember one sayeing of generall Lambert's, that ' the best of
men are but men at the best ' : of this you will meet with divers
examples in this rude and hastie collection. Now these arcana are
not fitt to lett flie abroad, till about 30 yeares hence; for the author
and the persons (like medlars) ought to be first rotten."

On September 8, 1680, he wrote further: "My book of
lives . . . they will be in all about six-score, and I beleeve
never any in England were delivered so faithfully and with
so good authority."

It becomes evident that Aubrey recognised the value of
a number of truths in regard to biography which are now
accepted. He believed that to be at its best biography
should be the work of a contemporary; that it should
contain the personal element " faithfully and authorita
tively delivered "; that it should not be panegyric, making

1 Aubrey's " Brief Lives" edited by Andrew Clark, vol. i. pp. 7-8.
1 Quoted by Mr. Clark in Ibid. vol. i. pp. 11-12 and 3, respectively.

NEW BEGINNINGS IN ENGLISH 61

man like unto a divinity; and that it should be written
in an interesting way, approaching nearer to conversation
than to dry and formal discourse. Since he was dissipated
and unable to bring himself to the completion of any
extensive connected literary work, his notions remained
embryonic. It is not difficult to imagine, however, that,
given a little more self-control and tenacity of purpose, a
little more of ability and judgment, Aubrey might have
come nearer to producing a genuine biography than any
man living before Boswell. Such imaginings, though, are
futile. It is wiser to conclude that the time for Boswell was
not yet; that when Boswell did arrive, he was the careful
student of those who before him had written biography, as
well as the fortunate worker who produced a type of the
true method for which all had been striving. It is not to be
questioned that Aubrey understood thekind of material that
should make up a biography, and that he, more than any one
else up to this time, foreshadowed Johnson and Boswell.

During the period that the compilers of Latin biographical
collections were flourishing, there were set forth, apparently
unconnected with any of the works heretofore mentioned,
two narratives which may be considered a beginning de
novo, the actual dawn of separate, authentic biography
composed in the English language. Some time before the
close of Mary's reign in 1558, William Roper, the son-in-
law of Sir Thomas More, sat down to commit to writing
what he could remember and gather from friends in regard
to the distinguished and unfortunate English Chancellor.
About 1557, George Cavendish, gentleman-usher to Car
dinal Wolsey, likewise wrote down what he knew of his
unfortunate master. \Both men were in a position to write
effective and important narratives; both had great
subjects for the display of their biographic skill.

Roper states his reason for writing in these words:

62 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

" Forasmuch as Sir Thomas More, Knight . . . was in his
days accounted a man worthy perpetual famous memory,
I William Roper (though most unworthy) his son-in-law
by marriage of his eldest daughter, knowing, no one man
that of him and of his doings understood so much as myself,
for that I was continually resident in his house by the space
of sixteen years and more, thought it therefore my part to
set forth such matters touching his life as I could at this
present call to remembrance, among which things very
many notable, not meet to have been forgotten, through
negligence and long continuance of time are slipped out of
my mind. Yet to the intent that the same should not
all utterly perish, I have at the desire of divers worship
ful friends of mine, though very far from the grace and
worthiness of him, nevertheless, as far forth as my mean
wit, memory, and know^dge would serve me, declared as
much thereof as in my poor judgment seemed worthy to
be remembered." 1 The Life begins abruptly, as if the first
part had been lost. The order is the rambling method of
loose reminiscence; there is nothing of coherent arrange-
ment in the modern sense: in these aspects, however, the
work is similar to most historical composition of the time.
The author refers a to letters, but does not quote them.
He is likewise careful to give his authorities for any informa
tion which he obtained through others. 3 The narrative is

1 Edition, Singer, 1822, pp. 1-2.

" Now at his coming to Lambeth, how wisely he behaved himself
before the commissioners at the ministration of the oath unto him,
may be found in certain letters of his sent to my wife remaining in a
great book of his works." Ibid. p. 70.

3 " Thus much touching Sir Thomas More's arraignment, being
not there present myself, have I by the credible report of the Right
Worshipful Sir Anthony Saintleger, and partly of Richard Haywood,
and John Webb, gentlemen, with others of good credit at the hearing
thereof present themselves, as far forth as my poor wit and memory
would serve me, here truly rehearsed unto you." Ibid. p. 89. And
also: " Which matter was by the same Sir Thomas Eliott to myself.

NEW BEGINNINGS IN ENGLISH 63

brief and incomplete, and of course contains inaccuracies;
yet the stately simplicity of the style, the pathetic reserve
of the writer, and the atmosphere of truth pervading all,
make it intensely interesting and mark it as a work of
great value.

Cavendish's Life of Cardinal Wolsey is longer and more
elaborate than the More, yet otherwise much similar to the
work of Roper. Cavendish begins, as does Roper, with a
statement of his reasons for writing: " The occasion there
fore that maketh me to rehearse all these things is this;
for as much as I intend, God willing, to write here some
part of the proceedings of Legate and Cardinal Wolsey,
Archbishop of York, and of his ascending and descending
from honourous estate; whereof some part shall be of
mine own knowledge, and some of other person's informa
tion. Forsooth this Cardinal was my lord and master,
whom in his life I served and so remained with him, after
his fall, continually, during the term of all his trouble, until
he died; as well in the south as in the north parts, and
noted all his demeanour and usage in all that time; as also
in his wealthy triumph and glorious estate. And since his
death I have heard diverse sundry surmises and imagined
tales, made of his proceedings and doings, which I myself
have perfectly known to be most untrue. . . . Therefore
I commit the truth to Him who knoweth all things. For,
whatsoever any man hath conceived in him when he lived,
or since his death, this much I dare be bold to say . . . that
in my judgment I never saw this realm in better order,
quietness, and obedience, than it was in the time of his
authority and rule, ne justice better administered with
indifferency." 1 Cavendish succeeded in writing a truly

to my wife, to Master Clement and his wife, to Master John Hay-
wood and his wife, and unto divers others his friends accordingly
reported." Ibid. p. 95.

1 Life of Cardinal Wolsey, Edition, Singer, 1825, vol. i. pp. 2-3.

64 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

masterful narrative; very far, to be sure, from accurate >/
and scientific biography, yet, for all that, a record that
holds the attention and leaves the reader with a vivid
impression of the great Cardinal. " It is," observes Singer,
" a work without pretension, but full of natural eloquence,
devoid of the formality of a set rhetorical composition,
unspoiled by the affectation of that classical manner in
which all biography and history of old time was prescribed
to be written, and which often divests such records of the
attraction to be found in the conversational stvle of
Cavendish. There is an unspeakablecharm in the naivete
of his language his occasional appeals to his reader and
the dramatic form of his narration, in which he gives the
very words of the interlocutors, and a lively picture of their
actions, making us as it were spectators of the scenes he
described. Indeed, our great poet has literally followed him
in several passages of his King Henry Fill., merely putting
his language into verse." 1

Cavendish " imparts to his pages, " writes Charles
Whibley, " a sense of reality which only a partaker of
Wolsey's fortunes could impart. But he was not a Boswell,
attempting to produce a large effect by a multiplicity of
details. His book has a definite plan and purpose. Con-
sciously or unconsciously, Cavendish was an artist. His
theme is the theme of many a Greek tragedy, and he
handles it with Greek austerity. He sets out to show how
Nemesis descends upon the haughty and overbold, how
the mighty are suddenly cast down from their seats, how
the hair-shirt lurks ever beneath the scarlet robes of the
cardinal. This is the confessed end and aim of his work.
He is not compiling a * life and times.' He discards as
irrelevant many events which seem important in the eye
of history. The famous words which he puts in the mouth
1 Life of Wolsey, vol. i. p. xi.

NEW BEGINNINGS IN ENGLISH 65

of Wolsey dying might serve as a text for the whole work:
* If I had served God as diligently as I have done the king,
he would not have given me over in my grey hairs.' " 1

It is interesting to observe that Cavendish had an
excellent conception of certain duties of a biographer.
Not only does he treat of Cardinal Wolsey's life from birth
to death, with greatest emphasis upon the political part of
his life; he also shows an appreciation of the difference
between biographical and historical narration, as well as
of the connexion between the two. 2 It is, however, of the
moralising element that the reader carries away from the
Life the most vivid impressions. With however much of
" honest indignation " Cavendish sat down " to vindicate
Cardinal Wolsey from slander," he did not allow his
indignation to blind him to the Cardinal's faults; but as a
moralist Cavendish stood forth openly. The element runs
through the Life from beginning to end, 8 the closing para
graph proceeding in this way :

" Who list to read and consider, with an indifferent eye, this
history, may behold the wondrous mutability; the uncertainty of
dignities, the flattering of feigned friends, and the tickle trust to
worldly princes. Whereof this lord cardinal hath felt both of the
sweet and the sour in each degree; as fleeting from honours, losing of
riches, deposed from dignities, forsaken of friends, and the incon-
stantness of princes' favour; of all which things he hath had in this

1 Cambridge History of English Literature, vol. iii. p. 336.

* Thus: " I omit and leave the circumstances thereof to historio
graphers of chronicles of princes, the which is no part of mine intend-
ment." Singer's Wolsey, p. 17. Also: " I have written thus this
history [of the siege of Pavia, etc.] at large because it was thought
that the Cardinal gave the chief occasion for all this mischief."
Ibid. p. 80.

8 These samples may suffice: " Now may this be a good example
and precedent to men in authority . . . how authority may decay."
Edition, Singer, 1825, p. 7. " Here may all men note the chances of
fortune" (p. 15). " . . . but to what end she [Fortune] brought him,
ye shall hear after " (p. 20). " Until Fortune began to wax something
wroth with his prosperous estate" (p. 55). " But ye may see when
fortune beginneth to lower " (p. 66).

E

66 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

world the full felicity, as long as fortune smiled upon him : but when
she began to frown, how soon was he deprived of all those dreaming
joys and vain pleasures. The which in twenty years with great
travail, study, and pains, obtained, were in one year and less, with
heaviness, care, and sorrow, lost and consumed. O madness! O
foolish desire ! O fond hope ! O greedy desire of vain honours, digni
ties and riches ! O what inconstant trust and assurance is in rolling
fortune ! Wherefore the prophet said full well Thesaurizat, et
ignorat, cui congregabit ea. Who is certain to whom he shall leave his
treasure and his riches that he hath gathered together in this world,
it may chance him to leave it unto such as he hath purposed ? but
the wise man saith, That another person, who peradventure he hated in
his life, shall spend it out and consume it." l

Whatever influence these two narratives might have had
upon the general development of biography was prevented
by the fact that for many years they were circulated only
in manuscript. Both were strongly Catholic in spirit, and
of course had to await favourable moments for publication.
The first edition of The Mirror of Vertue in Worldly Great
ness : or, the Life of Sir Thomas More has on the title-page
the date of Paris, 1626, although Singer suggests that it
was probably printed in England. 2 Likewise, Cavendish's
Life of Wolsey remained in manuscript until 1641, when
it was first published in mutilated form for party purposes. 3
Not until 1893, when the Kelmscott edition was printed

1 Singer's Wolsey, vol. i. pp. 335-6.

1 " It was then not uncommon for books which favoured Catholic
doctrines to have a foreign imprint, even when not printed abroad."
Singer's Move (1822), p. vi. " It has been remarked by Hunter that
More's life and works have been all along manipulated for political
purposes, and in the interest of the Holy See." Encyclopedia
Britannica, Article " Sir Thomas More." A consideration of the
different lives of More in chronological order makes an interesting
study in biography.

3 From a letter in the Bodleian Library written by Edmund
Mai one to Francis Douce (Nov. 24, 1809), I quote the following:
" The first edition of the Life of Wolsey (4to. 1641) is before me, and
is entitled the ' Negotiations of T. W., etc.' The second edition
(in 1667) is called ' The Life and Death, etc.' and the third in 1706
is entitled ' Memoirs of the great favourite Cardinal Wolsey, etc.'
They are all basely sophisticated and interpolated, originally in

NEW BEGINNINGS IN ENGLISH 67

by William Morris from F. S. Ellis' transcript of the
autograph copy in the British Museum, did the public
have access to the book in the original text. The long delay
in the publication of these works retarded the development
of biography proper for almost a century, and the limited
circulation of the books when first published retarded it
still longer.

Not long after Roper and Cavendish had written their
narratives, Francis Bacon in his Advancement of Learning
(1605) lamented the scarcity of " lives " in these words:

" For ' Lives,' I do find strange that these times have so little
esteemed the virtues of the times, as that the writing of lives be no
more frequent. For although there be not many sovereign princes
or absolute commanders, and that states are most collected into
monarchies, yet are there many worthy personages that deserve
better than dispersed report or barren eulogies. For herein the
invention of one of the late poets is proper, and doth well enrich the
ancient fiction : for he f eigneth that at the end of the thread or web
of every man's life there was a little medal containing the person's
name, and that Time waited upon the shears; and as soon as the
thread was cut, caught the medals, and carried them to the river of
Lethe; and about the bank there were many birds flying up and
down, that would get the medals and carry them in their beak a
little while, and then let them fall into the river: only there were a
few swans which if they got a name would carry it to a temple where
it was consecrated." l

Bacon, it will be remembered, in this same work, divides
History into three kinds; viz., that which represents a time,
or a person, or an action. To the first he gave the name
of Chronicles; to the second, Lives; to the third, Narra
tions or Relations. Notwithstanding the fact that he had
not come to a conception of biography as a form of litera-

1641 for the purpose of raising a clamour against the dignitaries of
the Church, and thus obliquely wounding Archbishop Laud." For
interesting discussion of the history of Cavendish's work, see Singer's
Life of Wolsey (1825), vol. ii. pp. xiii-lxxii. See also Introduction to
Storer's Metrical Life of Wolsey, Oxford, 1826.
1 Edition, William Pickering, 1825, pp. 132-3.

68 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

ture dissociated from history, he yet made some valuable
observations and pointed the way for the future. In con
sidering the three divisions, he wrote thus : " Of these,
although the first be the most complete and absolute kind
of history, and hath most estimation and glory, yet the
second excelleth it in profit and use, and the third in verity
and sincerity: for history of times representeth the magni
tude of actions, and the public faces and deportments of
persons, and passeth over in silence the smaller passages
and motions of men and matters. . . . But Lives, if they be
well written, propounding to themselves a person to repre
sent, in whom actions both greater and smaller, public and
private, have a commixture, must of necessity contain a
more true, native, and lively representation." 1 Bacon was
familiar with Plutarch's Lives, which a short time before
(1579) became accessible to Englishmen through North's
translation. The work of Plutarch no doubt set him to
thinking and caused him to wish that a similar work might
be produced in England. The confounding of history and
biography, however, prevented any rapid or marked develop
ment of the latter. Writing almost eighty years later John
Dryden exhibits much the same conception of biography as
does Bacon, and, like Bacon, continues to consider it as only
a branch of history. Dr. White Kennet's History of England,
published in 1706, consists of a series of lives by different
authors, and well illustrates the habit of making biographical
narrative serve the purposes of history. 2 It was reserved
for the eighteenth century to free biography from the
trammels of history proper.

1 Edition, Pickering, 1825, pp. 127-8.

8 Such representative works from the History of England may be
taken as examples : The Lives of King Edward V. and Richard III.
by Sir Thomas More ; The Life of King Henry VII. by Lord Bacon ;
The Life of King Edward VI. by Sir John Hayward; The History of
Queen Elizabeth by William Cambden; and The History and Life of
King Charles I. (anonymous).

NEW BEGINNINGS IN ENGLISH 69

We come now to charming old Izaak Walton, the first to
take in hand the writing of deliberate biography. As he
frequently tells us, circumstances forced him to take up the
biographer's pen; and, with sweet humility, he again and
again expresses the wish that in doing so he " has pre
vented no abler person " from undertaking the task. Five
biographical sketches three of his own intimate friends,
and two of those not personally known to him make up the
sum of his contribution. His first work was the Life of
Doctor Donne, prefixed to the first collection of Donne's
sermons in 1640. In the introduction to the Life, Walton
tells us that when he heard that the sermons of his friend
were to be printed without the author's life, " indignation
or grief indeed I know not which transported me so far,
that I reviewed my forsaken collections [notes made for
Sir Henry Wotton, who had contemplated writing a life
of Donne], and resolved the world should see the best plain
picture of the author's life, that my artless pencil, guided
by the hand of truth, could present to it." l

Eleven years later in 1651 he turned once again to
biography, this time writing the Life of his friend Sir Henry
Wotton. In 1665 appeared the Life of Richard Hooker, and
in 1670 the Life of George Herbert, neither of whom Walton
knew personally. Walton was now an old man he was
seventy in 1663 and thus three of the five biographies are
the products of his old age. The labour of collecting
material and of composing bore heavily upon him at times,
and especially during his work upon the Life of his old
friend Dr. Robert Sanderson, which appeared in 1678, in the
author's eighty-fifth year. Nothing could be more delightful
than the introduction to the Life of George Herbert, in which
Walton records how in " a late retreat from the business of
this world, and those many little cares with which he had
1 Major's Edition of the Lives (1825), p. i.

70 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

too often encumbered himself, he fell into a contemplation
of some of those historic passages that are recorded in sacred
story: and more particularly of what had passed between
our blessed Saviour, and that wonder of women and sinners,
and mourners, Saint Mary Magdalene." This contemplation
led him to a consideration of the fact that Mary's free
offerings had won for her record and mention " wheresoever
his Gospel should be read, so that her name should live to
succeeding generations, even till time itself shall be no
more." " Upon occasion of which fair example," writes
Walton, " I did lately look back, and not without some
content at least to myself that I have endeavoured to
deserve the love, and preserve the memory, of my two
deceased friends, Dr. Donne and Sir Henry Wotton, by
declaring the several employments and various accidents of
their lives. And though Mr. George Herbert whose life I
now intend to write were to me a stranger as to his person,
for I have only seen him: yet since he was, and was
worthy to be, their friend, and very many of his have been
mine, I judge it may not be unacceptable to those that knew
any of them in their lives, or do now know them by mine, or
their own writings, to see this conjunction of them after
their deaths; without which, many things that concerned
them, and some things that concerned the age in which they
lived, would be less perfect, and lost to posterity." * A
dozen years later, Mary's experience was yet running in his
mind, for in the preface to the Life of Dr. Sanderson he says:
" For it may be noted that our Saviour hath had such care,
that, for Mary Magdalene's kindness to him, her name
should never be forgotten: and doubtless Dr. Sanderson's
meek and innocent life, his great and useful learning, might
therefore challenge the like endeavours to preserve his
memory : and 'tis to me a wonder that it has been already
1 Lives (1825), p. 272.

NEW BEGINNINGS IN ENGLISH 71

fifteen years neglected. But in saying this my meaning is not
to upbraid others I am far from that but excuse myself,
or beg pardon for daring to attempt it. ... And though
my age might have procured me a Writ of Ease, and that
secured me from all further trouble in this kind; yet I met
with such persuasion to begin, and so many willing in
formers since, and from them and others, such helps and
encouragements to proceed, that when I found myself
faint, and weary of the burthen with which I had loaden
myself, and ready to lay it down; yet time and new strength
hath at last brought it to be what it now is." l Walton
closed the Life of Dr. Sanderson, and his own biographical
labours, with these words : " 'Tis now too late to wish that
my life may be like his: for I am in the eighty-fifth year
of my age: but I humbly beseech Almighty God that my
death may; and do as earnestly beg of every reader, to
say Amen."

Walton was a pioneer in biographical work, and as a
pioneer he proceeded. " The five short lives which he
published, though pale by the -side of such work in bio
graphy as the end of the eighteenth century introduced,
are yet notable as among the earliest which aim at giving
us a vivid portrait of the man, instead of a discreet and
conventional testimonial." 2 Nothing at all similar to his
Lives had been produced in English before his time, save
Roper's More and Cavendish's Wolsey, and these he may
never have seen; they are not included in the list of books
with which he was familiar. 8 His work is his own and shows
little dependence on the method of any other writer of
biography. He does not say whether he was influenced in
his order of proceeding by any author; he was acquainted
with Plutarch's Lives which he mentions not only in the

1 Lives (1825), pp. 352-3.

1 Edmund Gosse, in Craik's English Prose, vol. ii. p. 341.

Given in Major's Lives, pp. 443-6.

72 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

five biographical sketches, but also in The Compleat Angler.
A careful reader can discern in his method of making
digressions, as well as in his method of making transitions,
the influence of Plutarch; yet the influence is but a faint
shadow. For example, in the Life of Donne, Walton, after
telling the story of Donne's vision of his wife and child,
proceeds very much in the manner of Plutarch: " This is a
relation that will beget some wonder, and it well may . . .
yet many will not believe there is any such thing as a
sympathy of souls; and I am well pleased that every
reader do enjoy his own opinion. But if the unbelieving
will not allow the believing reader of this story a liberty to
believe that it may be true, then I wish him to consider,
many wise men have believed that the ghost of Julius
Caesar did appear to Brutus, and that both St. Austin, and
Monica his mother, had visions in order to his conversion
. . . the incredible reader may find in the sacred story
that Samuel did appear to Saul even after his death . . .
and Bildad, in the book of Job, says these words : ' A
spirit passed before my face; the hair of my head stood
up; fear and trembling came upon me, and made all my
bones to shake.' Upon which words I will make no com
ment, but leave them to be considered by the incredulous
reader. . . ." 1 Walton was thoroughly steeped in the
Scriptures and the writings of the Church Fathers, and in
all his works makes numerous references to both.

1 In Major's Lives, pp. 25-6. With this passage it is interesting to
compare one from Plutarch: " And so if any credit may be given
to these instances, why should we judge it incongruous that a like
spirit of the gods should visit Zaleucus, Minos, Zoroaster, Lycur-
gus, and Numa, the controllers of kingdoms and the legislators for
commonwealths? Nay, it may be reasonable to believe, that the
gods, with a serious purpose, assist at the councils and serious
debates of such men, to inspire and direct them; and visit poets
and musicians, if at all, in their more sportive moods; but for
difference of opinion here, as Bacchylides said, ' the road is broad.' "
Plutarch's Lives, Everyman's Library, vol. i. p. 95.

NEW BEGINNINGS IN ENGLISH 73

It could not be otherwise than that the Lives, under
taken as they were in such a period and by such a man as
Walton, should follow the old-fashioned plan of taking
what could be had easily: from his own memory, from
accounts given by friends and relatives, from such docu
ments as came readily to hand. There is in them nothing of
the careful research method of later times. A limited use
of letters and wills is made Mr. Gosse suggests that to
Walton " we owe the idea of illustrating and developing
biography by means of correspondence " these being
inserted wherever came most convenient; it is Walton's
custom usually to append poetical tributes and illustrative
documents. There is evident throughout the five sketches
an appreciation of the personal anecdote which throws
light on individual qualities. There is, also, especially in
the Life of Wotton, a union of history with biography, and
a care for the subordination of the historical narrative.

It is noticeable that the five sketches deal with men
prominent in Church and State. 1 As yet, no man who
devoted himself wholly to literature had been made the
subject of such extended biographical narrative. Note
worthy, too, is the fact that Walton writes entirely in a
vein of panegyric; by nature, he wishes to condone to
forgive and to forget. " Without doubt," says Mr. Gosse,
" his incorrigible optimism entered into his study of the
character of his friends, and it is no part of his inexperience
as a portrait-painter that he mixes nis colours with so much
rose-water. He saw his distinguished acquaintances in that
light; he saw them pure, radiant, and stately beyond a
mortal guise, and he could not be true to himself unless he
gave them the superhuman graces at which we may now

1 " Alike irresistible in the excellence of their tendencies, the one
[The Compleat Angler] might be characterised as the Ritual of the
Fields; the other [the Lives} the Book of the Church." Major'sLv,
p. iii.

74 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

smile a little." l How like him is this passage: " It was said
that the accusation was contrived by a dissenting brother,
one that endured not church ceremonies, hating him for
his book's sake, which he was not able to answer : and his
name hath been told me; but I have not so much con
fidence in the relation as to make my pen fix a scandal on
him to posterity; I shall rather leave it doubtful to the
great day of revelation." 2 The biographies are in no sense
complete from the point of view of mere information: they
are but delightful miniatures by a charming writer, who
more truly exhibits himself than those of whom he is
writing. " Indeed," remarks Professor Raleigh, " Walton's
Lives are almost too perfect to serve as models. They are
obituary poems ; each of them has the unity and the melody
of a song or sonnet; they deal with no problems, but sing
the praises of obscure beneficence and a mind that seeks
its happiness in the shade." 3 We are not surprised that
Wordsworth enshrined them in a sonnet which cannot be
omitted in a tribute to Walton:

" There are no colours in the fairest sky
So fair as these. The feather, whence the pen
Was shaped that traced the lives of these good men,
Dropped from an Angel's wing. With moistened eye
We read of faith and purest charity
In Statesman, Priest, and humble Citizen:
Oh could we copy their mild virtues, then
What joy to live, what blessedness to die!
Methinks their very names shine still and bright;
Apart like glow-worms on a summer night;
Or lonely tapers when from far they fling
A guiding ray; or seen like stars on high,
Satellites burning in a lucid ring
Around meek Walton's heavenly memory." *

1 In Craik's English Prose, vol. ii. p. 341.

2 Major's Lives (Hooker), pp. 238-9.

3 Six Essays on Johnson, pp. 103-4.

4 Ecclesiastical Sonnets, III. v.

NEW BEGINNINGS IN ENGLISH 75

The Lives possess a value far and away beyond their con
tribution to the development of English biography; they
are in themselves classics. They are just what we should
expect from the author of The Compleat Angler. To digress
with Walton is a pleasure that no reader should forego. 1

It was long before English biography changed much
from Walton's method. Samuel Johnson followed him
closely in plan, cutting away, however, from panegyric,
and adding literary criticism. It must be remarked that
Walton, too, made observations, though slight, upon
the writings of those whose lives he narrated. Walton's
were the first biographical narratives to grip the attention
of the public. Between 1670 and 1675 four editions of the
Lives (Donne, Wotton, Hooker, and Herbert), collected in
one volume, appeared. After 1678 the Life of Sanderson
was added to the collection, and the five lives became " the
forerunners of a whole class of English literature."

The excellent advance made by Walton was not un
attended by contemporaneous retarding influences. One of
the chief of these influences was that exerted by the senti
ments set forth by Thomas Sprat in An Account of the Life
and Writings of Mr. Abraham Cowley, prefixed to an
edition of Cowley's Works in 1668. In this Account^ Sprat
succeeded in doing two things; he confirmed and continued
the habit of making biography panegyric a in character,
and he, for a time, delayed the just rising custom of using
familiar correspondence to elucidate character. Doctor
Johnson was constrained to say in regard to the element of

1 " Then he [Plutarch] was more happy in his digressions than
any we have named. I have always been pleased to see him, and his
imitator Montaigne, when they strike a little out of the common
road ; for we are sure to be the better for their wandering." Dryden,
Life of Plutarch. This is another bit of evidence that may be remem
bered in connexion with Plutarch's influence on Walton.

1 Sprat believed Cowley's life to be " beneficial for example."
" This, Sir," he wrote in the Account, " was the principal end of this
long discourse."

76 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

panegyric that Sprat " has produced a funeral oration
rather than a history : he has given the character, not the life
of Cowley; for he writes with so little detail that scarcely
anything is distinctly known, but all is shown confused and
enlarged through the mist of panegyric.'* l Against the using
of private letters a practice foreshadowed by William Roper
and first begun by Izaak Walton Sprat set himself firmly.
He admits the excellence of the prose in Cowley's letters:
" In these," writes Sprat, " he always expressed the native
tenderness, and innocent gayety of his mind. . . . But I
know you [he addresses the Account to Martin Clifford]
agree with me, that nothing of this nature should be
published. . . . The truth is, the letters that pass between
particular friends, if they are written as they ought to be,
can scarce ever be fit to see the light. They should not con
sist of fulsome compliments, or tedious politics, or elaborate
elegancies, or general fancies, but they should have a
native clearness and shortness, a domestical plainness, and
a peculiar kind of familiarity, which can only affect the
humour of those to whom they were intended. The very
same passages which make writings of this nature delight
ful amongst friends, will lose all manner of taste, when they
come to be read by those that are indifferent. In such
letters the souls of men should appear undressed: and in
that negligent habit, they may be fit to be seen by one or
two in a chamber, but not to go abroad into the streets. "
This is enough of quotation to prove that, measured by
later standards of biography, Sprat was a hopeless incom
petent. Nevertheless, at the time, his influence was great
Doctor Johnson refers to him as " an author whose
pregnancy of imagination, and elegance of language have
deservedly set him high in the ranks of literature " and

1 Lives of the Poets (Cowley). By " a character," Johnson meant a
panegyric, or " a collection of vague impressions of personality";
by " a life," he meant " a strict biographic record."

NEW BEGINNINGS IN ENGLISH 77

not for more than a century was the private letter used as an
important and invaluable element in biography.

Up to this point, the term biography has been used in
referring to such narratives as have thus far been written.
It is now time to call attention to the fact that, so far as
has been traced, the word biographia was first employed in
England in the year 1683. l In applying the term biography,
therefore, to narratives written before 1683, we must
remember that any such use of the word is out of deference
to custom. Prior to the publication of Boswell's Life of
Johnson in 1791 Mason's Gray might be excepted
there existed in the English language only biographical
sketches " lives," " characters," " criticisms," as they
were variously called. In 1683 there was published the
translation of Plutarch's Lives which is commonly known
as Dryden's. To this translation Dryden contributed the
dedication and a " Life " of Plutarch, which " Life," after
Bacon's remarks already given, continues the critical
literature of English biography. Somewhat in the manner
of Bacon, Dryden calls attention to the divisions of History :
"History is principally divided into these three species;
Commentaries or Annals; History, properly so called; and
Biographia, or the Lives of Particular Men." He proceeds
then with his critical dicta :

" Biographia, or the history of particular men's lives, 1 comes next
to be considered; which in dignity is inferior to the other two, as
being more confined in action, and treating of wars, and councils,
and all other public affairs of nations, only as they relate to him
whose life is written, or as his fortunes have a particular dependence

1 According to Murray's New English Dictionary, biographist was
first used by Fuller in 1662; biography by Dryden in 1683; biographer
by Addison in 1715; and biographical by Oldys in 1738. All the
other compounds are later. Bioypa<f>la is quoted from Damascius,
c. 500. BioypdQos is cited by du Cange as mediaeval Greek.

1 The influence of this definition may be traced in dictionaries
from Johnson to Murray. The Century Dictionary, for example,
adopts it verbatim.

78 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

on them, or connexion to them. All things here are circumscribed
and driven to a point, so as to terminate in one; consequently, if
the action or counsel were managed by colleagues, some part of it
must be either lame or wanting, except it be supplied by the excur
sion of the writer. Herein, likewise, must be less of variety, for the
same reason; because the fortunes and actions of one man are
related, not those of many. Thus the actions and achievements
of Sylla, Lucullus, and Pompey, are all of them but the successive
parts of the Mithridatic war; of which we could have no perfect
image, if the same hand had not given us the whole, though at
several views, in their particular lives.

" Yet though we allow, for the reasons above alleged, that this kind
of writing is in dignity inferior to History and Annals, in pleasure
and instruction it equals, or even excels, both of them. It is not only
commanded by ancient practice to celebrate the memory of great
and worthy men, as the best thanks which posterity can pay them,
but also the examples of virtue are of more vigour, when they are thus
contracted into individuals. As the sunbeams, united in a burning-
glass to a point have greater force than when they are darted from
plain superficies, so the virtues and actions of man, drawn together
into a single story, strike upon our minds a stronger and more lively
impression, than the scattered relations of many men, and many
actions; and, by the same means that they give us pleasure, they
afford us profit too . . . and as the reader is more concerned at one
man's fortune than those of many, so the writer likewise is more
capable of making a perfect work if he confine himself to this narrow
compass. The lineaments, features, and colouring of a single picture
may be hit exactly: but in a history-piece of many figures, the
general design, the ordonnance or disposition of it, the relation of one
figure to another, the diversity of the posture, habits, shadowings,
and all the other graces conspiring to an uniformity, are of so diffi
cult performance, that neither is the resemblance of particular
persons often perfect, nor the beauty of the piece complete; for any
considerable errour in the parts renders the whole disagreeable and
lame. Thus, then the perfection of the work, and the benefit arising
from it, are both more absolute in biography than in history. . . .

" Biographia, or the histories of particular lives, though circum
scribed in the subject, is yet more extensive in the style than the
other two; for it not only comprehends them both, but has some
what superadded, which neither of them have. The style of it is
various according to the occasion. There are proper places in it for
the plainness and nakedness of narration, which is ascribed to annals ;
there is also room reserved for the loftiness and gravity of general

NEW BEGINNINGS IN ENGLISH 79

history, when the actions related shall require that manner of
expression. But there is withal a descent into minute circumstances,
and trivial passages of life, which are natural to this way of writing,
and which the dignity of the other two will not admit. There you
are conducted only into the rooms of state, here you are led into the
private lodgings of the hero; you see him in his undress, and are
made familiar with his most private actions and conversations. You
may behold a Scipio and a Laelius gathering cockleshells on the shore,
Augustus playing at bounding stones with boys, and Agesilaus
riding on a hobby-horse among his children. The pageantry of life
is taken away : you see the poor reasonable animal as naked as ever
nature made him; are made acquainted with his passions and his
follies, and find the demi-god a man. Plutarch himself has more than
once defended this kind of relating little passages: for, in the Life
of Alexander, he says thus : ' In writing the lives of illustrious Men,
I am not tied to the laws of history; nor does it follow that, because
an action is great, it therefore manifests the greatness and virtue of
him who did it; but, on the other side, sometimes a word, or a
casual jest, betrays a man more to our knowledge of him, than a
battle fought wherein ten thousand men were slain, or sacking of
cities, or a course of victories.' In another place he quotes Xenophon
on the like occasion : ' The sayings of great men in their familiar
discourses, and amidst their wine, have somewhat in them which
is worthy to be transmitted to posterity.' Our author [Plutarch]
therefore needs no excuse, but rather deserves a commendation,
when he relates, as pleasant, some sayings of his heroes, which appear
(I must confess it) very cold and insipid mirth to us. For it is not his
meaning to commend the jest, but to paint the man." 1

To such a stage had biography and the criticism of bio
graphy progressed seventeen years before the close of the
seventeenth century. It is at once apparent that, par
ticularly as expressed in Dryden's contribution to the sub
ject, the broad, general principles of biography are clearly
set forth. Portions of the foregoing excerpts could well be
applied to the work done by Boswell. The conception of
biography had become clear in the minds of men like
Dryden, even though they had not reached the point where
they could consider it as related, indeed, to history, yet

The Works of John Dryden, Constable (1821), vol. 17, pp. 56-62.

8o ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

definitely separated from it a literary form sui generis.
The long process of evolution in the biographical form was,
at the close of the seventeenth century, nearing culmina
tion so far as content was concerned : a full century was still
demanded to bring } about that culmination. What all
writers of biographical narrative from long before the time
of Plutarch l had struggled to present " that faithful
portrait of a soul in its adventures through life " was
reserved for a native of North Britain to delineate with
remarkable completeness and success. It was entirely in
keeping with the progress of human thought and manners
that the " fulness of time " came near the end of the
eighteenth century.

1 Professor Bernadotte Perrin, of Yale University, has shown in
the excellent Introduction to his Plutarch's Themistocles and Arts-
tides (the parts " Plutarcfc the Biographer " and " Biography before
Plutarch ") that " there was a recognised technique of biography
long before Plutarch, to the general features of which it can be seen
that he conforms, at least in many of his Lives."

MODERN ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY 81

CHAPTER V

THE RISE OF MODERN ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY THE

EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

MANY conditions conspired to make the eighteenth a
century of development and fulfilment in the history of
English biography. Education was becoming wide-spread;
a reading public was demanding literature which was
supplied by the various forms of journalistic enterprise
newspapers, magazines, and literary reviews; men were
awakening to an interest in themselves. The emphasis was
fast shifting from an interest in the higher ranks of society
to an interest in the common people: in the stock phrase,
men were coming to a realisation, however dim as yet, of
" the brotherhood of man." One of the important factors
in the production of this state of affairs was the coffee-house.
Writing under date of June 15, 1680, John Aubrey penned
the following significant sentence in a letter l to Anthony
Wood : " 'Tis a task [the writing of the Minutes of Lives]
that I never thought to have undertaken till you imposed it
upon me, sayeing that I was fitt for it by reason of my
generall acquaintance, having now not only lived above
halfe a centurie of yeares in the world, but have also been
much tumbled up and downe in it which hath made me
much knowne; besides the moderne advantage of coffee-
howses in this great Citie [London], before which men knew
not how to be acquainted, but with their owne relations, or
societies."

Leaving out of consideration the qualifications for the
1 Quoted by Andrew Clark in Aubrey's " Brief Lives," vol. i. p. 10,

82 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

writing of biography, set forth so naively by Wood to
Aubrey, we now know that Aubrey, in mentioning the
coffee-house, recognised at that early date one of the con
ditions requisite for the development of biography. In 1691,
Anthony Wood admitted that such work as the gathering
of material for the Aihenae Oxonienses was " a great deal
more fit for one who frequents much society in common
rooms, at public fires, in coffee-houses, assignations, clubs,
etc., where the characters of men and their works are fre
quently discussed," than for himself " as 'twere dead to the
world, and utterly unknown in person to the generality of
scholars in Oxon." Unconsciously, through many years,
the men of those times were schooling themselves: those
" who gathered day after day in these resorts were not only
interested in their companions' ideas and demeanour; they
cultivated an eye for trivial actions and utterances, a gift
for investigating other people's prejudices and partialities,
and they realised the pleasure of winning their way into the
intricacies of another man's mind. Hence, they acquired
a new attitude towards their fellow-creatures. Characters
which would formerly have been ridiculed or despised were
now valued as intellectual pi*zz$es, eccentricities attracted
sympathetic attention, and if became the note of intelligent
men to be tolerant." 1 Dryden and the worthies who
gathered at Will's Coffee-House, and the long succession of
literary men who succeeded them, helped to cultivate a
taste for the gossipy conversation which entered into the
very life of later eighteenth-century biography.^

Before 1700, except for the biographical compilations
which need not here enter into consideration, biography was
sporadic and occasional. Indeed, for many years after the
beginning of the eighteenth century, " lives " were simply
prefixed to editions of the authors' works. The public,
1 Cambridge History of English Literature, vol. ix. p. 31.

MODERN ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY 83

however, was now beginning to demand satisfaction of its
desire for information about men common men like them
selves. The man who came forward to take advantage of
this desire was that publisher of unsavoury reputation,
Edmund Curll. As Professor Walter Raleigh excellently
says of Curll : " It occurred to him that, in a world governed
by the law of mortality, men might be handsomely enter
tained on one another's remains. He lost no time in putting
his theory into practice. During the years of his activity,
he published some forty or fifty separate Lives, intimate,
anecdotal, scurrilous sometimes, of famous and notorious
persons who had the ill-fortune to die during his life-time.
He had learned the wisdom of the grave-digger in Hamlet,
and knew that there are many rotten corpses nowadays,
that will scarce hold the laying in. So he seized on them
before they were cold, and commemorated them in batches.
One of his titles runs : The Lives of the most Eminent Persons
who died in the years 1711, 12, 13, 14, 15, in 4 vols. 8vo.
His books commanded a large sale, and modern biography
was established." *

The work thus initiated by Curll soon became sufficiently
important to merit the attention of the leading literary
men of the time. In No. 35 of the Freeholder (April 20,
1716), Addison, writing " Of Modern Historians," spoke
thus : " The misfortune is, that there are more instances of
men who deserve this kind of immortality [that secured
by a good " life-historian "], than of authors who are able
to bestow it. Our country, which has produced writers of
the first figure in every other kind of work, has been very
barren in good historians. . . . There is a race of men
lately sprung up ... whom one cannot reflect upon with
out indignation as well as contempt. These are our Grub-
Street biographers, who watch for the death of a great man
1 Six Essays on Johnson, p. 117.

84 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

like so many undertakers, on purpose to make a penny of
him. He is no sooner laid in his grave, but he falls into the
hand of an historian; who, to swell a volume, ascribes to
him works which he never wrote, and actions which he
never performed; celebrates virtues which he was never
famous for, and excuses faults which he was never guilty of.
They fetch their only authentic records out of Doctors'
Commons, and when they have got a copy of his last will
and testament, they fancy themselves furnished with
sufficient materials for his history. ^This might indeed
enable them in some measure to write the history of his
death; but what can we expect from an author that
undertakes to write the life of a great man, who is furnished
with no other matters of fact .besides legacies ; and instead
of being able to tell us what he did, can only tell us what
he bequeathed ? This manner of exposing the private
concerns of families, and sacrificing the secrets of the dead
to the curiosity of the living, is one of those licentious
practices which might well deserve the animadversions of
our government, when it has time to contrive expedients
for remedying the many crying abuses of the press. In the
meanwhile, what a poor idea must strangers conceive of
those persons who have been famous among us in their
generation, should they form their notions of them from
the writings of these our historiographers! What would
our posterity think of their illustrious forefathers should
they only see them in such weak and disadvantageous
lights! But to our comfort, works of this nature are so
short-lived that they cannot possibly diminish the memory
of those patriots which they are not able to preserve."

What Addison wrote in regard to the short life of the
Grub-Street biographies was true enough. The works of
Curll were in themselves of no intrinsic value, yet they were
a stimulating contribution to the progressive biographical

MODERN ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY 85

movement, as they were also the inevitable outgrowth of
accumulated past tendencies. Now that the " taste for
biography " was aroused, the supply rapidly increased.
No small portion of this supply consisted of what may be
classed as criminal biographies, which constitute a remark
able, if peculiar, chapter in the development of English
biography. These biographies were far enough from the
long-standing tendency to treat only of churchmen, rulers,
and great statesmen; and indicate in no uncertain way
the shifting, unwholesome as it may have been in this case,
of attention to the common people. Criminal pamphlets
of actual rogues were first published in English in the
sixteenth century; these were followed by longer narratives
in the seventeenth; and these in the eighteenth were suc
ceeded by a " deluge of rogue literature " memoirs,
sketches, confessions, and such collected chronicles of crime
as The Newgate Calendar. 1

At this point, it is well to note the manner in which the
English novel developed as an offshoot of biography.
Daniel Defoe was one of those who, on the death of a well-
known person, made a practice of writing a life immediately,
in order to take advantage of public interest. As he often
found it difficult or impossible to obtain full and authentic
information in regard to the subjects of these lives, he did
just what Addison complained of in the Freeholder paper
given above, filled his pages with inferences and inventions.
In short, " fiction entered into his biographies, just as
biography afterward entered into his novels." 2 In the
words of his biographer, William Minto, " from writing
biographies with real names attached to them, it was but

1 For excellent treatment of the criminal biographies, with biblio
graphy, see chap. iv. of vol. i., The Literature of Roguery, by Frank
Wadleigh Chandler.

1 Bayard Tuckerman, A History of English Prose Fiction, pp.
162-3.

86 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

a short step to writing biographies with fictitious names ; " x
for, as Professor Chandler well says, when Defoe " turned
from composing criminal pamphlets upon Wild and Shep-
pard [actual rogues] to write Moll Flanders and Colonel
Jacque, he merely substituted imaginary for actual beings,
and enlarged the scale without altering the method of
treatment." 2 It is thus evident that " the realistic writing
of Defoe and the realistic novel in England were, the
offspring of these ancestors, the children of a taste for fact.
Realistic fiction in this country was first written by way of
direct imitation of truthful record, and not, as in France,
by way of burlesque on the high-flown romance." 3 It is
sufficient here to indicate, also, that Robinson Crusoe is
only a fictitious autobiography, for which Defoe took as a
model " the form that best produces the illusion of truth
that of current memoirs with the accompaniment of a
diary." 4 Later, we shall have occasion to see how the novel
was influenced in its development through the increasing
use of letters in biography.

Biography had now concerned itself in turn with eccle
siastic, ruler, statesman, and criminal ; the eighteenth
century had well nigh reached its midmost point before it
turned attention to the avowed man of letters. Before the
death of Alexander Pope in 1744, the lifet>f no man, purely
a man of letters, had been written and separately published.
Nicholas Rowe's Account of the Life of Mr. William Shake
speare but forms the introduction to an edition of the
dramatist's plays (1709). Thomas Sprat had excused
himself in 1668 for writing the Life of Cowley prefixed
to an edition of Cowley's Works saying that perhaps he
had " spent too many words on a private man, and a

1 Life of Defoe, p. 137.

8 The Literature of Roguery, vol. i. pp. 186-7.

8 Walter Raleigh, The English Novel, p. 114.

Cross, The Development of the English Novel, p. 28.

MODERN ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY 87

scholar " although Cowley was not at all entirely a
literary man. Pope's death, however, was the occasion of
the beginning of that habit of writing literary biographies
which has extended, with ever-increasing volume, to the
present, when, as Professor Lounsbury remarks, it is
impossible for the man of letters to escape the biographer.
Within the year of Pope's death two anonymous catch
penny lives appeared, followed in 1745 by the pretentious
and worthless two volumes of the Memoirs of the Life and
Writings of Alexander Pope by William Ayre; the Life by
W. H. Dilworth in 1759; and that by Owen Ruffhead in
1769. It should likewise be borne in mind that Johnson
wrote his Life of Richard Savage in 1744, and thus began
his career as a biographer of literary men with the actual
beginning of literary biography. The man 01 letters had
at last come into his own.

It is interesting to note how from the very beginning
biographers have seemed to feel compelled to make excuses
for undertaking to write of men whose lives have been
devoted to literature. A study of prefaces and the opening
pages of such biographies from 1744 to ^ e P resent will
furnish abundant evidence of the custom. No more need
be done here than give a few examples of the practice. In
undertaking to write of Pope, Ayre remarks : " Let no
one think it strange or foreign to Mr. Pope that we thus
largely discourse comparatively on these poets with him,
for he rilled up all his time almost in such a way; take
from his life his perusal and comparing the poets, his con
versation about literature with his friends, receiving letters
on learned subjects and criticism from them, and writing
again to them all, Mr. Pope's active part of life would not
fill one sheet of paper. The two greatest actions of his life
are, that he went from London when young to live at
Windsor Forest, and in the year 1716 moved to Twicken-

88 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

ham, for the remainder of his days." 1 " So," continues
Ayre, " all readers will be disappointed who look into the
Life of Mr. Pope, expecting to find anything else but a
gentleman, a scholar, and a poet. He filled no office or
place, was involved in no lawsuits, was no traveller, moved
but little from one place to another, never married, and
confined his conversation within the circle of his friends;
in short, his life was wholly a state of inaction, and spent in
conversation, study, and books." 2

Goldsmith, in beginning the Life of Voltaire in 1759,
writes in a similar vein: " That life which has been wholly
employed in the study, is properly seen only in the author's
writings; there is no variety to entertain, nor adventure
to interest us in the calm anecdotes of such an existence.
Cold criticism is all the reader must expect, instead of
instructive history." He continues in the Life of Parnell,
in 1770: "The life of a scholar seldom abounds with
adventure. His fame is acquired in solitude; and the
historian, who only views him at a distance, must be content
with a dry detail of actions by which he is scarcely dis
tinguished from the rest of mankind. . . . Such is the very
unpractical detail of the life of a poet. Some dates, and
some few facts scarcely more interesting than those that
make the ornaments of a country tombstone are all that
remain of one whose labours now begin to excite universal
curiosity. A poet, while living, is seldom an object suffi
ciently great to attract much attention; his real merits are
known to but a few, and these are generally sparing in
their praises." Of men working in a different department of
literature this was written in 1772: "It will in brief be
only remarked that the personal history of a man devoted
to study, or a single employ, does not afford matter of
great moment, or admit of those striking events that
1 Memoirs of Pope, vol. ii. p. 153. ' Ibid. pp. 154-5.

MODERN ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY 89

commonly engage general attention. The scene of action
is of a different kind, and by their literary connexions they
are best known to the world: In this view our author
[Leland], the subject of present consideration, requires
particular regard. The life of Leland may, in some degree,
indeed, be said to have been active, but it was of a nature
confined and laborious, not diversified with a sufficient
variety of objects to gratify the spirit of public curiosity,
but an arduous task, spent in silent unremitting attention." 1
In 1882, Samuel Longfellow wrote in the same vein: " The
reader must be reminded at the outset, and must remember
all along, that this is the Life of a man of letters. . . .
t Now, the life of a man of letters must needs be unexciting
and uneventful in the eyes of men of activities and affairs.
In such a life, a new book is a great adventure, a new poem
or tale a chief event." 2 Thus apologetically has the bio
graphy of literary men arisen and held its own against the
innate human desire for action and adventure.

It may be well to observe here that some years before the
close of the seventeenth century, biography was beginning
to grow more formal and studied, the briefer sketches giving
place to extended records. This was particularly true in
the case of churchmen. Gilbert Burnet's Life of William
Bedell (1685) was > f r t ^ ie period in which it was composed,
well proportioned and excellently written. Richard Parr's
Life of James Usher (1686) devotes one hundred and three
folio pages to the narrative of the Archbishop's life, wherein
we find a brief character of Usher as " a private man, a
minister and bishop of God's Church, and as a most loyal
subject to his lawful sovereign prince." 8 One of the longest
biographies published before Boswell's Life of Dr. Johnson

1 The Lives of those Eminent Antiquaries, John Leland, Thomas
Hearne, etc., vol. i. p. v.

Life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Preface.
Pp. 79-92.

90 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

was John Racket's Scrinia Reserata : a Memorial offered,
to the Great Deserving* of John Williams, D.D., completed
February 17, 1657; l published in 1693. This ponderous
and formidable tome of 458 folio pages was frankly intended
to be more than a biography of Lord Keeper Williams ; $he
title-page indicates that the reader may expect a narrative
of "a series of the most remarkable occurrences and transac
tions of his life, in relation both to Church and State," and
the author takes care to add, near the close of the book;'
" I need not admonish my readers, for they find it all the)
way, that my scope is not so much to insist upon the
memorable things of one man's life; as to furnish them with
reading out of my small store, that are well-willers to
learning in theological, political, and moral knowledge.'* 2
Bishop Racket at least knew what he was doing, and when
he writes, " I have borrowed this much room to set up a
little obelisk for King James, out of that which is only
intended to the memorials of his Lord Keeper," 3 he is
only following out a pre-determined plan. Of Scrinia
Reserata, the Rev. George G. Perry wrote: " It displays
great learning and much wit, but has the common bio
graphical defect of defending too indiscriminately the
many questionable passages in the lord keeper's life:
nevertheless, it remains one of the best biographies in the
English language. Coleridge in his " Table Talk " credits
it with giving the most invaluable insight into the times'
preceding the civil wars of any book he knew." 4 Of how-'
ever much value the work may be from the historical point
of view, it is bestowing too great praise upon it to say that '
" it remains one of the best biographies in the English
language." This is true only when the actual biographical
portion is separated from the great mass of extraneous

1 See Scrinia Reserata, part ii. p. 229. Ibid. p. 229.

3 Ibid, part i. p. 228.

4 Dictionary of National Biography, Article " John Racket." "

MODERN ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY 91

material; in brief, it is not a good biography, because its
author lacked the power of artistic construction.

History and biography as combined in Scrinia Reserata
continued to flourish and develop in the eighteenth century;
from the numerous types produced, Thomas Carte's History
of the Life of James Duke of Ormonde (three volumes, 1735-6)
and George Lord Lyttleton's The History of the Life of King
Henry the Second, and of the Age in which he lived, in five
books, etc. (1767) may be given as examples. As the interest
in biography grew, writers began to look abroad for sub
jects, and sdon Englishmen were publishing such long
and diligently wrought volumes as Conyers Middleton's
History of the Life of Marcus Tullius Cicero (two volumes,
1741); John Jortin's The Life of Erasmus (1758); and the
Rev. Walter Harte's History of the Life of Gustavus Adol-
phus (two volumes, 1759). Likewise a new spirit of research
was entering into the works of both historians and bio
graphers, a spirit that was later in the nineteenth century
to work a revolution in all sorts of historical and literary
labours. Among biographers, William Oldys was a pioneer
in the application of this new spirit, his Life of Sir Walter
Raleigh (two volumes, 1736) remaining as a monument of
painful, laborious, and effective research in a period when
there were practically none of the helps now considered so
needful for the literary worker. Gibbon at one time formed
a purpose to write a Life of Raleigh ; but, after reading
Oldys', and coming to the conclusion that " he could add
nothing new to the subject except the uncertain merit of
style and sentiment," he gave up the design. Although he
does not say as much, Gibbon, without doubt, learned
much of the research method from Oldys. 1

See Gibbon's Autobiography for references to the work of Oldys.
Consult in addition the Memoir of William Oldys, London, 1862, p.
xiv. See also, what Oldys himself remarks in The Life of Raleigh,
vol. i. The Works of Sir Walter Raleigh, pp. 4-5, Oxford, 1829.

92 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

It will be noticed that Gibbon speaks of the " uncertain
merit of style and sentiment," a phrase with which a student
of either history or biography finds it difficult to agree.
Style and sentiment are no uncertain merits; on the
contrary, other things being equal, they are the very life-
blood of a composition. Previous to the middle of the
eighteenth century, most of the biographies written in
English laboured under the disadvantage of a heavy,
obscure, involved style: they are not easy to read. As the
leaven of Dryden's and Addison's style began to make itself
felt, biography becomes a brighter thing to read. Oldys'
Life of Raleigh, excellent as it is otherwise, is yet laborious
reading: the sentence-structure is but little in advance of
Fulke Greville Lord Brooke's Life of Sir Philip Sidney
(published 1652). Literary grace and charm entered into
the writing of biography through the slight contributions
made by Oliver Goldsmith, of whom in this department of
composition Johnson's " nullum quod tetigit non ornavit "
is noticeably true. Goldsmith wrote four brief biographical
sketches: the Memoirs ofM. de Voltaire, 1759; The Life of
Richard Nash, 1762, that " inimitable mock heroic, confer
ring immortality on a marionette of supreme quality " ; 1
the Life of Thomas Parnell, 1759, a hurried composition,
written for an edition of Parnell's Poems, published by
Davies; and the fragmentary Life of Lord Bolingbroke
prefixed to an edition of the Dissertation on Parties, pub
lished by Davies in 1770. Although he touched these
sketches lightly writing them hurriedly and with little
preparation he did much to advance biography to the
realm of literature. Since Izaak Walton laid aside the bio
grapher's pen after completing The Life of Sanderson, no one
approached him in style of biographical narrative save
Goldsmith. To pass from Lord Brooke's Life of Sidney, or
1 Harmsworth Encyclopedia, Article " Biography."

MODERN ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY 93

Racket's Scrinia Reserata, or Oldys' Life of Raleigh to
The Life of Richard Nash, is like passing from an uncertain
and stumbling way through the darkness of a cave to the
grassy footpaths of a daisy-sprinkled meadow.

Meanwhile, a literature dealing with the criticism of
biography a literature slender enough to be sure was
beginning to emerge. Men were beginning to discuss bio
graphy; authors in their prefaces and opening pages gave
their opinions on what had been done and on what they
were attempting to do; the periodicals were beginning to
carry little essays on the subject of biography into the
courts of the coffee-houses ; the literary magazines were
beginning to publish notices and brief reviews of " Lives."
In the issue of the Idler for November 24, 1759 (>fe. 84),
Johnson felt justified in making the statement that " Bio
graphy is, of the various kinds of narrative writing, that
which is most eagerl)* read and most easily applied to the
purposes of life." The form had now permanently and
definitely established itself; it had become self-conscious,
ready, willing, and eager to shake off any hindering charac
teristics and to take on those qualities most to be desired.
The criticism of the period, so far as it was directed towards
biography, set itself principally against the elements of
panegyric and against the notion that the lives of ordinary
individuals were not worthy of commemoration.

In his suggestive article on " Biography " in the Encyclo
paedia Britannica, Mr. Edmund Gosse states that William
Oldys was " the first to speak out boldly " against this
" highly artificial thing, lacking all the salieat features of
honest portraiture," and leaves the reader with the impres
sion that Oldys was the first to attack the solemnly vague,
grandiose, panegyrical lives of which Sprat's Cowley,
according to Mr. Gosse, was the forerunner and the example.
It is certain, however, that Mr. Oldys was not the first to

94 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

speak out against such types of biography; and equally
true that Thomas Sprat was not the first to produce such
narratives. It is evidence sufficient perhaps to call attention
to the fact that Oldys, even though he says that " general
characters, high-flown panegyrics, or outrageous satires
had very frequently appeared under the appellation of
Lives," yet praises " Sprat's inimitable Life of Cowley." *
Mr. Gosse has also undoubtedly misinterpreted the
closing sentences of Oldys' Preface to the Biograpbia
Britannica 2 when he says that Oldys " pointed out the
cruelty, we might even say the impiety, of sacrificing the
glory of great characters to trivial circumstances and mere
conveniency, and attacked the timid and scrupulous super
ficiality of those who undertook to write lives of eminent
men, while omitting everything which gave definition to
the portrait." At this particular point in the Preface, Mr.
Oldys was simply emphasising the fact that no trouble was
to be spared to make the work complete and easy to be
consulted even though the preconceived plan should have
to be altered. 3

1 Biographia Britannica, vol. i. p. xii. See, moreover, what John
Berkenhout had to say: " If these authors [of the Biographia
Britannica] have too generally and indiscriminately exhibited
adulatory portraits of our ancestors, it must be ascribed to an excess
of philanthropy, and therefore ought not to be peevishly considered."
Biographia Liter aria, Prefatory matter, 1777.

8 The Preface is unsigned, but in all probability Oldys wrote it,
or at least had a part in its composition.

3 It is perhaps well that the portion of the Preface here in question
should be given: " One thing however we must be permitted to
mention before we conclude, and that is, the care to bring all remark
able articles into our Biography at once and under the same alpha
bet, so that the memorable facts throughout our whole history, the
disputable points relating to chronology, the circumstances attending
every event of importance, as well as the characters and actions of the
persons principally concerned in them, may be all readily found and
represented to the reader, supported by proper evidence, and
explained by the comparison of what has been advanced concerning
them by different writers. To have left out articles of note would
have been unpardonable in an historical, and to have treated such

MODERN ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY 95

It has already been pointed out that from the days of
the narratives of saints' lives, the tendency of biography in
Britain had been towards panegyric; it has also been
admitted that Sprat's Life of Cowley did much to confirm
this tendency. It remains to be shown that a reaction
against this sort of biography set in long before 1747, the
date of Oldys' Preface. Margaret Duchess of Newcastle's
Life of William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle^ appeared in
1667, and even at this early date voices a strong protest
against panegyric. " When I first intended to write this
history " we quote a part of the Duchess* Preface
" knowing myself to be no scholar, and as ignorant of the
rules of writing histories as I have in my other works
acknowledged myself to be of the names and terms of art;
I desired my Lord that he would be pleased to let me have
some elegant and learned historian to assist me; which
request his Grace would not grant me. ... I humbly
answered that without a learned assistant, the history

articles superficially, unworthy a critical dictionary; the fulfilling
our Plan, after we were satisfied of its being approved by the public,
became our indispensable duty, and to that we have constantly
attended in the choice, and in the manner of treating our articles.
If, therefore, they appear more numerous than might be expected,
or the doing them justice requires a little more room than at first
might be conceived requisite, let it be considered how far the reputa
tion of our country, the honour of our ancestors, the respect due to
the memories of great men, and the vast importance of setting
worthy examples before the eyes of posterity, are concerned. When
we reflect seriously upon this, and on the cruelty, we might even say
impiety, of sacrificing the glory of great characters to trivial circum
stances and mere convenience, it might be justly apprehended that
the world would rather resent our timidity, if we should distrust
their approbation of the liberty necessary to be taken in this respect,
than censure us for doing at once, what, some time or other, must
have been done, if we had been too scrupulous in the performance
of what we undertook. Architects are seldom censured for small
mistakes in their estimates, if the structure they proposed to erect
be but uniform and complete : besides, a palace finished at once, is
always cheaper, as well as more beautiful, than when helped out by
additional buildings made necessary from the cramping of the first
design." Vol. i. p. xv. (1747).

96 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

would be defective: but he replied that truth could not be
defective. I said again that rhetoric did adorn the truth:
and he answered that rhetoric was fitter for falsehoods than
truths. Thus I was forced by his Grace's commands to
write this history in my own plain style, without elegant
flourishings, or exquisite method, relying entirely upon
truth, in the expressing whereof I have been very circum
spect. ... I am resolved to write in a natural, plain
style, without Latin sentences, moral instructions, politic
designs, feigned orations, or envious and malicious exclama
tions, this short history of the loyal, heroic, and prudent
actions of my noble Lord, as also of his sufferings, losses,
and ill-fortunes." In 1685, Gilbert Burnet, in his preface
to The Life of William Bedell, wrote these words : " I will
only give a bare and simple relation of his life, and will
avoid the bestowing on him or his actions such epithets
and praises as they deserve: but will leave that to the
reader: for in writing of lives all big words are to be left
to those who dress up legends, and make lives rather than
write them : the things themselves must praise the person,
otherwise all the good words that the writer bestows on
him will only show his own great kindness to his memory,
but will not persuade others : on the contrary it will incline
them to suspect his partiality, and make them look on him
as an author rather than a writer." In another part of the
preface, Burnet insists : " Lives must be written with the
strictness of a severe historian and not helped up with
rhetoric and invention " ; and later on he confesses that in
writing of Bishop Usher he found it hard to follow his own
principles : " So he was certainly one of the greatest and
best men that the age, or perhaps the world, has produced.
But no man is entirely perfect; he was not made for the
governing part of his function. . . . But this was necessary
to be told, since history is to be writ impartially; and I

MODERN ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY 97

ought to be forgiven for taxing his memory a little; for I
was never so tempted in anything that I ever writ, to dis
guise the truth, as upon this occasion." l This, surely, is
speaking out boldly and plainly.

It will be remembered that Mr. Perry wrote that Racket's
Scrinia Reserata " has the common biographical defect
of defending too indiscriminately the many questionable
passages in the lord keeper's [Bishop Williams'] life."
The manner, therefore, in which even Bishop Racket spoke
out as early as 1657 (although not printed until 1693) is
valuable to note: " I would he had done himself no greater
wrong as a justician: but there was a miscarriage which
I cannot pass over; a great deal of it was error, but some
what in it hath the wilfulness of a fault. I am not wanton,
like the ladies that lodge about the piazza in Covent Garden,
to lay a black patch upon a fair cheek, where it need not.
No: my scope is to make his oversight a caution to others.
For I intend in all that I write (I appeal to God, Who knows
it), rather to profit many than to praise him." 2 In closing,
Bishop Racket speaks still more emphatically : " Yet in
these observations I have not set down a Cyrus, a feigned
subject, but wrought them into the true image of this
prelate. . . . Some are cheated with wit now-a-days after
the French fashion, and had rather men should be com
mended in romances of persons that were never extant,
than in such as lived among us, truly deserved glory, and
did us good. My subject is real, and not umbratic." 3 If
Bishop Racket could not live up to what he thus set down
as a principle, he at least recognised the biographical fault
and spoke out plainly against it.

In much the same strain, John Toland, writing at the
very close of the seventeenth century (1698), speaks thus

1 Life of William Bedell, pp. 86-8.
1 Scrinia Reserata, part i. p. 36.
3 Ibid, part ii. p. 229.

G

98 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

in his Life of Milton : " Observing in this performance
the rules of a faithful historian, being neither provoked by
malice, nor bribed by favour, and as well daring to say all
that is true, as scorning to write any falsehood, I shall not
conceal what may be thought against my author's honour,
nor add the least word for his reputation. ... In the
characters of sects and parties, books or opinions, I shall
produce his own words as I find 'em in his works, that those
who approve his reasons may owe all the obligation to
himself, and that I may escape the blame of such as may
dislike what he says. For it is commonly seen that historians
are suspected rather to make their hero what they would
have him to be, than such as he really was . . . but I am
neither writing a satire nor a panegyric upon Milton, but
publishing the true history of his actions, works and
opinions." * In concluding the Life, Toland recurs to the
same thought : " 'Tis probable that you (as well as I or
any other) may disapprove of Milton's sentiments in several
cases, but, I'm sure you are far from being displeased to
find 'em particularised in the history of his life; for we
should have no true account of things if authors related
nothing but what they liked themselves. . . . But a
historian ought to conceal or disguise nothing, and the
reader is to be left judge of the virtues he should imitate,
or the vices he ought to detest and avoid, without ever
loving his book the less." 2 Roger North, in writing the
lives of his three brothers (originally published 1740-42),
kept before himself at all times the thought of the danger
of running into panegyric. " It may be thought," he writes
in beginning, " I have touched here too much upon the
panegyric," 3 and in closing he says : " I may be here told

1 Prefatory letter, Life of Milton, addressed by Toland to Thomas
Raulins.

* Life of Milton, pp. 141-2.

8 Lives of the Norths (Lord Guilford), vol. i. p. 7, London, 1826.

MODERN ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY 99

that if I think, by these descriptions, to exhibit the portrait
of a great man, I am out of the way. ... I answer that I
am not giving the portrait of a perfect man; and whoever
pretends to do so, is a foul flatterer; and yet the character
I give is no small one, because of a single infirmity, natural
and unavoidable." l To what extent the writer of the Lives
of the Norths succeeded, may be inferred from the statement
made by the editor of the 1826 edition of the Lives : " With
regard to the character of Lord Guilford himself, although
the biographer has evidently delineated it under the
influence of feelings which rendered it impossible for him
to be truly impartial, he has yet stated all his facts so
candidly and ingeniously that we have little difficulty in
forming a just estimate of the Lord Keeper's real character."
Many more examples of the habit of biographers inveighing
against panegyric might be given.

It was not alone the writers of biography who inveighed
against the rhetorical, panegyric, untruthful life; one of
the pioneers of the English novel found in the consideration
of such biographies inspiration which he turned to good
use in his fiction writing. Thus it is, that the English novel
is again, at this point in its development, indebted to
English biography. Henry Fielding entitled chapter i. of
Joseph Andrews (1742), " Of writing lives in general, and
particularly of Pamela : with a word, by the bye, of Colley
Gibber and others," indicating that it was his intention to
satirise not only Richardson's fictitious autobiographical
narrative, Pamela, but Gibber's actual autobiography.
After speaking of the service which " those biographers
who have recorded the actions of great and worthy persons
of both sexes " have rendered to mankind, Fielding con
tinues : " But I pass by these and many others, to mention
two books, lately published, which represent an admirable
1 Lives of the Norths (John North), vol. iii. p. 352.

ioo ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

pattern of the amiable in either sex. The former of these,
which deals in male virtue, was written by the great person
himself, who lived the life he hath recorded, and is by many
thought to have lived such a life only in order to write it.
The other is communicated to us by an historian who
borrows his lights, as the common method is, from authentic
papers and records. The reader, I believe, already con
jectures I mean the lives of Mr. Colley Gibber, and of
Mrs. Pamela Andrews. How artfully doth the former, by
insinuating that he escaped being promoted to the highest
stations in church and state, teach us a contempt of worldly
grandeur ! how strongly doth he inculcate an absolute sub
mission to our superiors ! Lastly, how completely doth he
arm us against so easy, so wretched a passion as the fear of
shame! how clearly doth he expose the emptiness and
vanity of that phantom, reputation ! "

Likewise, in Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great (published in
Miscellanies, 1743), Fielding satirises eulogistic biography,
finding his inspiration chiefly, no doubt, in the many
criminal biographies; but for all that, pouring forth his
scorn on all biographers who " lose themselves in pompous
eulogies of their subjects, for their ' greatness,' without
consideration of any ' goodness.' " x A real Jonathan Wild
was hanged at Tyburn in 1725: Fielding's novel is the
imagined biography of this criminal from his baptism to
his death on " the Tree of Glory." The following extracts
will give some conception of Fielding's method and purpose :

" But besides the two obvious advantages of surveying, as it were
in a picture, the true beauty of virtue, and deformity of vice, we
may moreover learn from Plutarch, Nepos, Suetonius, and other
biographers, this useful lesson, not too hastily, nor in the gross to
bestow either our praise or censure; since we shall often find such
a mixture of good and evil in the same character, that it may

1 See Edmund Gosse, History of Eighteenth Century Literature,
pp. 253-4; an d Chandler, The Literature of Roguery, vol. ii. p. 303.

MODERN ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY 101

require a very accurate judgment and a very elaborate inquiry to
determine on which side the balance turns : for though we sometimes
meet with an Aristides or a Brutus, a Lysander or a Nero, yet far
the greater number are of the mixt kind ; neither totally good nor
bad: their greatest virtues being obscured and allayed by their
vices, and those again softened and coloured over by their virtues."

" We would not therefore be understood to affect giving the
reader a perfect or consummate pattern of human excellence; but
rather, by faithfully recording some little imperfections which
shadowed over the lustre of those great qualities which we shall here
record, to teach the lessons we have above mentioned ; to induce our
reader with us to lament the frailty of human nature, and to con
vince him that no mortal, after a thorough scrutiny, can be a proper
object of our adoration."

" It seems therefore very unlikely that the same person should
possess them both [greatness and goodness]; and yet nothing is
more usual with writers who find many instances of greatness in
their favourite hero, than to make him a complement of goodness
into the bargain ; and this without considering that by such means
they destroy the great perfection called uniformity of character." l

" It is the custom of all biographers, at their entrance into their
work, to step a little backwards (as far, indeed, generally as they
are able) and to trace up their hero, as the ancients did the river
Nile, till an incapacity of proceeding higher puts an end to their
search. . . . But, whatever original this custom had, it is now too
well established to be disputed. I shall therefore conform to it in
the strictest manner."

" We are sorry we cannot indulge our readers' curiosity with a
full and perfect account of this accident, but as there are such
various accounts, one of which only can be true, and possibly, and
indeed probably none; instead of following the general method of
historians, who in such cases set down the various reports, and leave
to your own conjecture which you will choose, we shall pass them
all over." 8

1 The three foregoing excerpts are taken from chapter i. of
Jonathan Wild, entitled " Shewing the wholesome uses drawn from
recording the achievements of those wonderful productions of nature
called Great Men."

1 Ibid. chap. ii. " Giving an account of as many of our hero's
ancestors as can be gathered out of the rubbish of antiquity, which
hath been carefully sifted for that purpose."

* Ibid. chap. vii.

102 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

" Thus we think this passage in our history, at first so greatly
surprising, is very naturally accounted for; and our relation rescued
from the Prodigious, which, though it often occurs in biography, is
not to be encouraged or much commended on any occasion, unless
when absolutely necessary to prevent the history's being at an end." 1

It may thus be seen that there was for many years a
strong growth of sentiment against the fulsomely bombastic
and panegyric life. So far as its death resulting from the
stroke of any one man is concerned, it may be said that
Samuel Johnson dealt that stroke when he wrote The Lives
of the English Poets (1777-81). Apart from the element
of philosophical literary criticism which Johnson infused
into the writing of biography, his greatest contribution to
the development of the form was his abolition of panegyric.
Professor Walter Raleigh sums up the matter consum
mately when he writes that "it is true that Johnson does
not offer unmixed praise to any of the fifty-two poets. He
was an old man ; the heat of his early affections was abated.
He had to judge not only of men, but of books, which are
sometimes good in parts. His was a new experiment: of
praise and blame there had been more than enough; he
set himself to show the reason of things by a process of
detailed criticism and analysis, so that his book is more
than a history; it is a philosophy of letters. Many of the
earlier writers of Lives had been servile eulogists. ' We
have had too many honey-suckle lives of Milton,' he said
to Malone; ' mine shall be in another strain/ It is in
another strain; a strain of a higher mood than if he had
culled all the flowers of the valley

' To strew the laureat herse where Lycid lies.' " z

From this time forth, in theory at least, panegyric in
biography was dead. One " P. H." writing to the Editor
of the Gentleman's Magazine in 1777, expressed himself

1 Jonathan Wild, chap. xii. 2 In his Six Essays on Johnson, pp. 142-3.

MODERN ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY 103

in these words: "I have always thought that the bio
grapher who endeavours to palliate the wickedness or
varnish the vices of the man whose life he is writing, does
an injury to morality and to society. The trite adage of
DC mortuis nil nisi bonum is no excuse. If the subject is of
importance to be given to the public, the true character
ought to be given, and indeed the man who paints in
colours glaringly false does a real injury to his friend, as
he only provokes some one to draw aside the curtain and
expose what might have remained unnoticed but for his
injudicious forwardness." l To this communication the
Editor replied : " We entirely agree with our correspondent
as to biography in general, and as to the Memoirs of Mr. F.
in particular." 2 Thus it was that by 1777, biographers,
public, satirists, reviewers, and editors had set themselves
against this false note in life writing. As a matter of fact,
while in theory the panegyric is dead, in practice, such is
the weakness of human nature, it still survives.

The second point upon which the criticism of the century
concentrated was that the lives of ordinary individuals
were worthy of commemoration. 3 The spirit of demo
cracy was in the air; men were beginning to recognise the
divine authority of the individual human soul, and to admit

" That man to man the world o'er
Shall brithers be for a' that."

1 Vol. xlvii. p. 625.

The remarks of " P. H." were occasioned by the observations
in the issue of the Gentleman's Magazine for November 1777, PP-
534-7, upon the Memoirs of Samuel Foote, Esq.

The following definitions from Bailey's English Dictionary (1721)
throw interesting light upon the prevalent conception as to those
who were considered worthy of biographical commemoration :
" Biographer, one who writes the lives of eminent persons " ; " Bio
graphy," which in the 1721 edition was defined as " a writing of the
lives of men," was later defined as " the writing of the lives of
eminent persons." Although " eminent " is somewhat indefinite in
meaning, it is certain that few, up to this time, were considered
eminent unless they had won fame in Church or State.

104 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

We have already seen that a remarkable tendency of this
interest in individuals exhibited itself in the criminal
biographies. Sir Richard Steele in a notice of Captain
Alexander Smith's History of the Lives of the most noted
Highwaymen, Foot-pads, House-breakers, Shop-lifts, etc.
(1714), felt constrained to speak in the following manner:
" There is a satisfaction to curiosity in knowing the adven
tures of the meanest of mankind; and all that I can say in
general of these great men in their way, recorded by
Capt. Smith, is that I have more respect for them than for
greater criminals, who are described with praise by more
eminent writers." 1

This interest in the life of the common man steadily
grew, and was emphasised by writers of great as well as by
those of little importance. William Ayre in his Memoirs of
Pope (1745) insisted upon the value of the private man's
life : " The lives of private men, though they afford not
examples which may fill the mind with ideas of greatness
and power like those of princes and generals, yet are they
such as are more open to common imitation; there are
few within whose compass those actions are, that is, there
are, comparatively speaking, few princes or generals, but
the actions of a private man are as a counsel to all; if good
eligible, if bad detestable, and to be avoided : for this reason
most wise men have delighted in faithful biography." 2 In
much the same strain, Johnson, in the Rambler? added the
weight of his authority, and made this assertion: " I have
often thought that there has rarely passed a life of which
a judicious and faithful narrative would not be useful."
Acting upon this principle, Johnson had, in 1744, given
to the world the Life of Savage, one of the first, as it is one
of the best, lives of a man having little claim to great

1 The Englishman, No. 48, Jan. 23, 1714. ' Preface, p. v.

8 No. 60, October 13, 1750.

MODERN ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY 105

merit. The Life of Savage won the praise of Johnson's
contemporaries. Sir John Hawkins writes that " The
manner in which Johnson has written this life is very-
judicious: it afforded no great actions to celebrate, no
improvements in science to record, nor any variety of events
to remark on"; 1 and then he quotes Henry Fielding's
commendation, in which the novelist says: " The author's
observations are short, significant, and just, as his narrative
is remarkably smooth and well disposed: his reflections
open to us all the recesses of the human heart, and, in a
word, a more just or pleasant, a more engaging or a more
improving treatise on the excellencies and defects of human
nature, is scarce to be found in our own or perhaps in any
other language." 2 " The Life of Savage" writes Professor
Walter Raleigh, " is a tribute of extraordinary delicacy
and beauty, paid by Johnson to his friend " ; 3 and thus a
twentieth-century critic agrees with the estimates made
in the eighteenth. In point of fact, Johnson not only
vindicated his statement that " there has rarely passed
a life of which a judicious and faithful narrative would
not be useful " a dictum, by the way, thoroughly
accepted ever since it was uttered he produced a narra
tive that became a model for many similar lives of the
humble.

Goldsmith, as a disciple of Johnson, summarised much
of the popular opinion in regard to such biography.
" History," he writes, " owes its excellence more to the
writer's manner than to the materials of which it is com
posed. . . . Thus no one can be properly said to write
history but he who understands the human heart, and its
whole train of affections and follies. Those affections and
follies are properly the materials he has to work upon.

1 In his Life of Johnson, p. 153.

1 Quoted from The Champion (February 1744) in Ibid. p. 156.

* Six Essays on Johnson, p. 19.

106 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

The relations of great events may surprise indeed: they
may be calculated to instruct those very few who govern
the million beneath: but the generality of mankind find
the most real improvement from relations which are
levelled to the general surface of life, which tell not how
men learned to conquer, but how they endeavoured to live
not how they gained the shout of the admiring crowd,
but how they acquired the esteem of their friends and
acquaintance." l A little further on, he says: " It were
to be wished that ministers and kings were left to write
their own histories ; they are truly useful to few but them
selves; but for men who are contented with more humble
stations, I fancy such truths only are serviceable as may
conduct them safely through life. That knowledge which
we can turn to our real benefit should be most eagerly
pursued. Measures which we cannot use but little increase
the happiness or even the pride of the possessor." 2 In the
Life of Parnell, Goldsmith repeats Johnson's thought:
" There is scarcely any man but might be made the subject
of a very interesting and amusing history if the writer,
besides a thorough acquaintance with the character he
draws, were able to make these nice distinctions which
separate it from all others."

With the close of the eighteenth century, the right of
the ordinary individual to biographical commemoration was.
established. All along, the course of the English novel
that offspring of the biographical spirit in such narratives
as Pamela, Tom Jones, Tristram Shandy, and The Vicar
of Wakefield, was helping to vindicate this right of the
common people. It is an interesting fact in biography that
a celebrated life of a great ruler celebrated, that is, in the
sense of Boswell's Johnson or Lockhart's Scott has never
been produced in English; with but few exceptions it is true
1 Memoirs of M. de Voltaire. 2 Ibid.

MODERN ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY 107

that a celebrated life of either statesman or churchman has
seldom been produced. In English biography, the great
achievements have been in the department of letters, and
of these the subjects have arisen, for the most part, from
the common walks of life. It is not too much to say that
English biography represents the triumph of democracy,
of individual worth, of human sympathy, of the divine
power in the human soul.

The consummation of a long growing and very important
custom in biographical narrative was wrought by the
Rev. William Mason l in his Memoirs of the Life and Writings
of Thomas Gray (1775). This was the custom of using
letters as a part of the biographical method. Letters had
been used, as we have seen, in one way and another since
Eddius* Life of Wilfrid, and particularly since the days of
Izaak Walton. Gilbert Burnet had made excellent use of
correspondence in his Life of Bishop Bedell, as had Bishop
Racket in Scrinia Reserata. Richard Parr had appended
to the Life of Usher " a collection of three hundred letters
between the said Lord Primate and most of the eminentest
persons for piety and learning in his time, both in England
and beyond the seas." Middleton in his Life of Cicero had
incorporated Cicero's correspondence into the narrative of
the life. The custom was in keeping with the steadily grow
ing interest of the public in letters and letter-writing, an
interest that began as early as 1664, when Margaret
Duchess of Newcastle published a collection of 211 letters
descriptive of London life. In 1678 came the translation of
the " Portuguese Letters," followed by a translation of the
letters of Eloisa and Abelard. Before the first quarter of the
eighteenth century had passed a number of short stories in
letter form, of which the Letters of Lindamira may be taken

1 See Austin Dobson, Eighteenth Century Studies, chap. " Gray's
Biographer." Dent's " Wayfarers' Library."

io8 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

as an example, came into existence. Taking advantage of
this interest in letter-writing, Rivington and Osborne,
publishers, in 1739 engaged Samuel Richardson to compose
a volume of Familiar Letters as a guide or " handy letter-
writer " for the uneducated. Catching inspiration from
his work on this volume, Richardson put it aside for the
time and turned to the writing of Pamela (published in
1740). All of Richardson's novels are written in the form of
consecutive letters. In this manner, the development of
the English novel and of English biography ran parallel
for/a* number of years.

season, however, did not insert Gray's letters merely as
a part of the narrative; he used them to tell the story of
Gray's life: in o^.er words, he attempted to make Gray his
own biographer.^! In regard to introducing the letters,
Mason says : " I am well aware that I am here going to do
a thing which the cautious and courtly Dr. Sprat (were he
now alive) would highly censure. He had, it seems, a large
collection of his friend Mr. Cowley's letters, * a way of
writing in which he particularly excelled, as in these he
always expressed the native tenderness and innocent gaiety
of hisheart ' : yet the Doctorwas of theopinion that 'nothing
of this nature should be published and that the letters that
pass between particular friends (if they are written as they
ought to be) can scarce ever be fit to see the light.' What 1
not when they express the native tenderness and innocent
gaiety of a heart like Mr. Cowley's ? No, by no means, * for
in such letters the souls of men appear undressed, and in
that negligent habit they may be fit to be seen by one or
two in a chamber, but not to go abroad in the street.' Such
readers as believe it incumbent on every well-bred soul
never to appear but in full dress will think that Dr. Sprat
has reason on his side; but I suspect that the generality will,
notwithstanding, wish hehad been less scrupulously delicate,

MODERN ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY 109

and lament 1 that the letters in question are not now
extant." 2 As to his purpose, Mr. Mason continues: " In
a word, Mr. Gray will become his own biographer, both in
this and the rest of the sections into which I divide the
work. By which means, and by the assistance of a few
notes which I shall occasionally add, it may be hoped that
nothing will be omitted which may tend to give a regular
and clear delineation of his life and character." 3

As an innovator, Mason felt constrained to defend or, at
least, to explain his object thoroughly: " The method in
which I have arranged the foregoing pages," he writes, " has,
I trust, one degree of merit that it makes the reader so
well acquainted with the man himself, as to render it
totally unnecessary to conclude the whole with his char
acter. If I am mistaken in this point, I have been a compiler
to little purpose; and I chose to be this rather than a bio
grapher, that I might do the more justice to the virtues and
genius of my friend. I might have written his life in the
common form perhaps with more reputation to myself; but
surely not with equal information to the reader : for whose
sake I have never related a single circumstance of Mr. Gray's
life in my own words, when I could employ bis for the pur
pose. Fortunately, I had more materials for this use than
commonly fall to the lot of an editor; and I certainly have
not been sparing in the use of them : whether I have been
too lavish, must be left to the decision of the public." 4 In
the face of these utterances, however, Mason was so much
under the influence of his age that he appended a brief

1 Cf. what Coleridge has to say: " What literary man has not
regretted the prudery of Sprat in refusing to let his friend Cowley
appear in his slippers and dressing-gown? " Biographia Liter aria,
Edition of J. Shawcross, vol. i. p. 44.

1 The Poems of Mr. Gray. To which are prefixed Memoirs of his life
and writings by W. Mason, M.A., York, 1775, p. 4, note.

3 Ibid. p. 5.

4 Ibid. pp. 400-1.

i io ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

character of Gray from the pages of the London Magazine,
excusing himself for so doing in these words : " I might here
lay down my pen, yet if any reader should still want his
character, I will give him one which was published very
soon after Mr. Gray's decease. It appears to be well written;
and as it comes from an anonymous pen, 1 I choose the
rather to insert it, as it will, on that account, be less
suspected of partiality." 2 Thus carefully did Mr. Mason
proceed in his innovation.

Three years after the publication of Mason's Life of Gray,
Samuel Johnson entered into that agreement with a com
pany of London booksellers to furnish " little Lives and
little Prefaces, to a little edition of The English Poets,"
which resulted in a finished body of magnificently mingled
biography and criticism of fifty-two English poets. These
were originally published in the old and long-established
manner as introductory to the works of each separate
poet. Johnson's work marks no great advance in the
development of biography save that introduction of philo
sophical criticism which has ever since marked them as
classics in their field. Johnson wrote much in the mood of
Izaak Walton out of a full mind and without exhaustive
research. As a matter of fact, he thoroughly disliked
grubbing in " the rubbish of antiquity " for biographical
materials: such a nineteenth -century work as Aitken's
Life of Richard Steele he would never have taken the
trouble to produce. He little valued the mere mechanical
work which any one of ordinary ability could perform ; he
would have had little in common with Freytag's Magister
Knips. " To adjust the minute events of literary history,"

1 The author was William Temple. The character was written in a
letter to Boswell, July 30, 1771, who published it without authority
in the London Magazine, March 1772, p. 140. Johnson likewise made
use of it in his Life of Gray.

* Poems and Memoirs, pp. 401-2.

MODERN ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY in

he asserted, " is tedious and troublesome: it requires indeed
no great force of understanding, but often depends upon
inquiries which there is no opportunity of making, or is to
be fetched from books and pamphlets not always at hand." *
In this belief, he proceeded in his own way, and confessed
in his Prayers and Meditations : " Some time in March
[1781] I finished the Lives of the Poets, which I wrote in my
usual way, dilatorily and hastily, unwilling to work, and
working with vigour and haste." In consequence, the
Lives of the Poets owe their value rather to the manner in
which they reflect the powerful and original mind of the
Literary Dictator who dared to write in his own way, than
to any completeness or scrupulous care in literary research.
To be sure, Johnson gathered and preserved a large mass of
history and floating tradition which might otherwise have
perished, and as a result made a permanent contribution to-
literary history. The course of English biography since 1781
has been, however, entirely away from the method of hap
hazard composition which he followed. Notwithstanding
this fact, the sane attitude of Johnson towards the pane
gyric element, the critical discourses united with the
biographies, the clearness and straightforwardness of the
style, the unity resulting from the idea always kept before
the mind of the author that he was " writing a life and not
a death," all combine to make the Lives of the Poets worthy
of a secure place in the history of the development of
English biography.

The rapid increase of public interest in biographical
narratives during forty years is shown by a comparison of
the number of lives immediately following the death of Pope
and of Johnson. Within two weeks of Johnson's death,
there appeared anonymously, Thr

Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D., with occasional Remarks on
1 In the Life of Dry den.

ii2 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

his writings, an Authentic Copy of his Will, and a Catalogue
of his Works, now known to be the work of William Cooke. 1
This was followed in 17^85 by William $haw's~Memoirs of
the Life and Writings of the late Dr. Samuel Johnson ; in
1786, by Mrs. Piozzi's The Anecdotes of the late Samuel
Johnson, LL.D., during the last twenty years of his life and
Dr. Joseph Towers' An Essay on the Life, Character, and
Writings of Dr. Samuel Johnson; in 1787 by Sir John
Hawkins' Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. ; and in 1791 by
James Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. Thus we
have by 1791 a total of six Lives, besides the sketch by
"* Thomas Tyers in the Gentleman's Magazine, 2 and The
Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D.
published by Boswell in 1785. Biography and in par
ticular the biography of the literary man had thus after
many centuries taken its secure place in the literature of
the English-speaking peoples a place which it has steadily
maintained to the present.

/ * We have now come to a consideration of James Boswell's
I Life of Johnson, that work toward which all English bio
graphy before 1791 tends, and to which all since that date
looks, back reminiscently. The mere mention of English
biography suggests to the^.^rerage person Boswell's Life of
Johnson. Now we must not consider Boswell as a surprising
development or unlooked-for prodigy, although there is no
doubt that many do look upon him in some such light. It
has already been said that he was the careful student of
those who before him had written biography, as well as

1 The issue of the Gentleman's Magazine of December 1784,
contains, on pp. 992-3, a harsh notice of this hpok, in which this
sentence occurs: " As it is notorious that this lAfe was annqunced
before the Doctor had been two days dead, ^nd Was published on
the ninth morning after the world was deprived of its greatest
literary ornament, a few trifling inaccuracies will of course be
expected, and pardoned by the indulgent reader."

a December 1784, pp. 891-911.

MODERN ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY 113

the fortunate worker who produced a type of the true
method for which all had been striving. As a zealous
Johnsonian disciple, he could scarcely have missed being
a biographer. We are now, however, face to face with the
questions, How did it come about that Boswell fulfilled the
true method of biography ? and, Just what development in
the history of the form does he mark ?

Before turning directly to a consideration of these ques
tions, it may be well to say that the " fulness of the times "
had arrived; the opportunity for a great biographer was
at hand. The taste for the form was strong; the interest
in literary gossip was keen; all the elements entering into
biographical narrative were fully appreciated. Moreover,
a great man perhaps England's greatest literary dictator
was demanding a biographer. And very diligently did a
number of writers endeavour to supply the demand, and
very well did some of them approximate success. Mrs.
Piozzi, bright and vivacious, but with all the defects of
brightness and vivacity, coupled with the Blue-Stocking
superficiality and dilettantism, pressed too soon into print.
She came very close to supplying what the public demanded;
the Anecdotes, however, were too fragmentary to be a Life,
too hastily and carelessly thrown together to be satisfying.
Sir John Hawkins likewise pressed feverishly into the
field by a too zealous desire for both profit and fame, which
allowed him no time for careful writing and revision, and
cursed by a discursiveness which marked him as a second
Asser, or Herbert of Bosham, achieved only a brief
triumph. 1 Only James Boswell, laughed at by many,

1 " I have not read more than one half of Sir John Hawkins, whose
book I met with at Crewe Hall. It was dull and confused, and
impertinent, and illiterate, and with all these faults, it somehow or
other interested me." Samuel Parr in letter to Henry Homer,
Nov. 20, 1788, quoted in John Johnstone's Memoirs of Parr, p. 4,
note.

ii4 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

unappreciated by almost all, 1 through scorn and ridicule,
through melancholy and despair, buoyed up by a strong
reliance on his own powers, " patient in his simple faith
sublime," toiled steadily on for almost seven years. 2 He
allowed Mrs. Piozzi and Sir John Hawkins to attempt the
satisfaction of the public appetite; his own magnum opus
must be held back until it was worthy of its great subject.
Whatever else we may say of Boswell, we must admit that
he had the strength to work and to wait ; he had the grace
to pay the price demanded for the production of worth
while work.

And now we are ready to examine the method followed
by Boswell in the production of the Life of Johnson. This
it is not difficult for us to do; for Boswell has been careful
to state fully the principles which he kept before himself.
It is only necessary, therefore, to gather these together in
his own words.

1 Richard Twiss, in a letter to Sir W. Scott, afterwards Lord
Stowell, after pressing him to undertake the task of writing John
son's biography, and alluding to the report that Doctor Percy
" was already engaged in the business," continued: " Nor am I
better pleased with the report that Sir John Hawkins or Mr. Boswell
would perform the task : I do not think either of them equal to the
work ; the one is a puppy, the other a pedant : suffer not, I beseech
you, the life of so excellent a man to be written by such puny fellows :
more abilities are required than possessed by all three: rescue his
memory from all such mean hands." " This not very sagacious
person," writes Percy Fitzgerald, " was happily not to have his
own way; but the appeal is valuable, as showing what was the
general feeling as to Boswell's fashion of dealing with biography."
Life of James Boswell, vol. ii. pp. 104-5.

a " Never was a work written under such struggles and depressing
conditions. He had, however, the most extraordinary faith in its
success, and long hesitated about accepting an offer of 1000 for it."
Fitzgerald, Life of James Boswell, vol. ii. pp. 1 1 5-6. Cf . also, this
extract from Boswell's letter to Wm. Temple: " I am absolutely
certain that my mode of biography, which gives not only a history
of Johnson's visible progress through the world, and of his publica
tions, but a view of his mind in his letters and conversations, is the
most perfect that can be conceived, and will be more of a Life than
any work that has yet appeared."

MODERN ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY 115

" Instead " (writes Boswell) " of melting down my materials into
one mass, and constantly speaking in my own person ... I have
resolved to adopt and enlarge upon the excellent plan of Mr. Mason,
in his Memoirs of Gray. Wherever narrative is necessary to explain,
connect, and supply, I furnish it to the best of my abilities; but in
the chronological series of Johnson's life, which I trace as distinctly
as I can, year by year, I produce, wherever it is in my power, his own
minutes, letters, or conversation, being convinced that this method
is more lively, and will make my readers better acquainted with
him, than even most of those were who actually knew him, but
could know him only partially; whereas there is here an accumula
tion of intelligence from various points, by which his character is
more fully understood and appreciated.

" Indeed I cannot conceive a more perfect method of writing any ^
man's life, than not only relating all the most important events of
it in their order, but interweaving what he privately wrote, and said,
and thought. ... I will venture to say that he will be seen in this
work more completely than any man who has ever yet lived.

" And he will be seen as he really was, for I profess to write, not his
panegyric, which must be all praise, but his Life; which, great and
good as he was, must not be supposed to be entirely perfect. To be j
as he was, is indeed subject of panegyric enough to any man in this
state of being : but in every picture there should be shade as well as /
light, and when I delineate him without reserve, I do what he himsej^ 7
recommended, both by his precept and his example."

[Here Boswell quotes the last paragraph of Rambler, No. 60, in
which occurs Johnson's statement, " If we owe regard to the memory
of the dead, there is yet more respect to be paid to Knowledge, to
virtue and to truth."]

y What I consider as the peculiar value of the following work, i*,
thV-quantity it contains of Johnson's conversation . . . of which
the specimens that I have given upon a former occasion [in a Journal
of a Tour to the Hebrides, 1785], have been received with so much
approbation, that I have good ground for supposing that the world
will not be indifferent to more ample communications of a similar
nature."

" If authority be required, let us appeal to Plutarch, the prince
of ancient biographers. . . . ' Nor is it always in the most distinguished
achievements that men's virtues or vices may be best discerned; /
but very often an action of small note, a short saying, or a jest, shall /
distinguish a person's real character more than the greatest sieges
or the most important battles.'

ii6 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

" To this may be added the sentiments of the very man whose life
I am about to exhibit.

" 'The business of the biographer is often to pass slightly over
those performances and incidents which produce vulgar greatness,
to lead the thoughts into domestic privacies, and display the minute
details of daily life, where exterior appendages are cast aside, and
men excel each other only by prudence and by virtue. The account
of Thuanus is with great propriety said by its author to have been
written, that it might lay open to posterity the private and familiar
character of that man, cujus ingenium et candorem ex ipsius scnptis
sunt olim semper miratun, whose candour and genius will to the end
of time be by his writings preserved in admiration.

" ' There are many invisible circumstances, which whether we
read as enquiries after natural or moral knowledge, whether we
intend to enlarge our science, or increase our virtue, are more
important than public occurrences. Thus Sallust, the great master
of nature, has not forgot in his account of Catiline to remark, that
his walk was now quick, and again slow, as an indication of a mind
revolving with violent commotion. Thus the story of Melancthon
affords a striking lecture on the value of time, by informing us, that
when he had made an appointment, he expected not only the hour,
but the minute to be fixed, that the day might not run out in the
idleness of suspense; and all the plans and enterprises of De Witt
are now of less importance to the world than that part of his personal
character, which represents him as careful of his health, and negli
gent of his life.

" ' But biography has often been allotted to writers, who seem very
little acquainted with the nature of their task, or very negligent
about the performance. They rarely afford any other account than
might be collected from public papers, but imagine themselves
writing a life when they exhibit a chronological series of actions or
preferments ; and have so little regard to the manners or behaviour
of their heroes, that more knowledge may be gained of a man's real
character, by a short conversation with one of his servants, than
from a formal and studied narrative, begun with his pedigree, and
ended with his funeral.

" 'There are indeed, some natural reasons why these narratives are
often written by such as were not likely to give much instruction
or delight, and why most accounts of particular persons are barren
and useless. Tf a life be delayed till interest and envy are at end, we
may hope i r impartiality, but must expect little intelligence; for
the incident, vvhich give excellence to biography are of a volatile
and evanescent kind, such as soon escape the memory, and are

MODERN ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY 117

transmitted by tradition. We know how few can pourtray a living
acquaintance, except by his most prominent and observable par
ticularities, and the grosser features of his mind; and it may be
easily imagined how much of this knowledge may be lost in impart
ing it, and how soon a succession of copies will lose all resemblance
to the original.' l

" I am fully aware of the objections which may be made to the
minuteness on some occasions of my detail of Johnson's conversa
tion, and how happily it is adapted for the petty exercise of ridicule
by men of superficial understanding and ludicrous fancy\but I
remain firm and confident in my opinion, that minute particulars
are frequently charactefistick, and always amusing, when they relate
to a distinguished man. JU am therefore exceedingly unwilling that
anything, however sligBt)' which my illustrious friend thought ifc^
worth his while to express, with any degree of point, should perish. 1
For this almost superstitious reverence, I have found very old and
venerable authority, quoted by our great modern prelate. Seeker,
in whose tenth sermon there is the following passage :

" ' Rabbi David Kimchi, a noted Jewish Commentator, who lived
about five hundred years ago, explains that passage in the first
Psalm, His leaf also shall not wither, from Rabbins yet older than
himself, thus : That even the idle talk, so he expresses it, of a good
man ought to be regarded ; the most superfluous things he saith are
always of some value. And other ancient authorities have the same
phrase, nearly in the same sense.' "

From these quotations it can be seen that Boswell was a
careful student of bioasaphy, and that he built upon founda
tions laid in the pastj Every method employed in the Life
of Johnson had, to a certain extent, been practised by
previous writers of biography. jThus, the use of letters had
grown, along with the interest-ill letter-writing, from Roper
through Walton, Burnet, Parr, Racket, and Mason; the
practice of recording familiar anecdotes had steadily
advanced from Aubrey to Sperici and Johnson, had been
essayed by Boswell himself in A journal of the lour to the
Hebrides, and firmly established by the public reception
accorded to Mrs. Piozzi's Anecdotes of Johnson; the

1 Rambler, No. 60. The reader will observe that, for the most part,
Johnson has merely amplified Plutarch's statement.
1 Life of Johnson, Hill's edition, vol. i. pp. 29-33.

ii8 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

growing distaste for panegyric had culminated in Johnson's
attitude towards it, and, of course, Boswell, as Johnson's
disciple, could not be a panegyrist,4 Finally, the recording
of conversation, of which there has always. been in English
biography a little, was perfected by BoswelJ. It can readily
be seen, in conclusion, that Boswell has simply taken
Plutarch's nut-shell statement, and followed it faithfully. 1
Through so many centuries had practice followed theory!
before catching up with her.

Before the publication of Boswell's Life of Johnson,
public opinion had been much divided upon several points
in regard to biography. Addison had written in 1716:
" The truth of it is, as the lives of great men cannot be
written with any tolerable degree of elegance or exactness
within a short space after their decease; so neither is it fit
that the history of a person who has acted among us in a
public character, should appear, until envy and friendship
are laid asleep, and the prejudice both of his antagonists
and adherents be, in some degree, softened and subdued.
... It were happy for us, could we prevail upon ourselves
to imagine that one who differs from us in opinion can
possibly be an honest man; and that we might do the same
justice to one another which will be done us hereafter by
those who shall make their appearance in the world when
this generation is no more. But in our present miserable
and divided condition, how just soever a man's pretensions
may be to a great or blameless reputation, he must expect
his share of obloquy and reproach; and even with regard
to his posthumous character, content himself with such a
kind of consideration as induced the famous Sir Francis
Bacon, after having bequeathed his soul to God and his
body to the earth, to leave his fame to foreign nations;
and, after some years, to his own country." l In opposition
1 Freeholder, No. 35.

MODERN ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY 119

to this opinion, that of Johnson has already been given, the
tenor of which is that if lives are delayed the salient features
will be forgotten and lost.

In 1787, George Home, D.D., formerly president of
Magdalen College, Oxford, and afterwards Bishop of
Norwich, defended the biographers who " seem conscien
tiously to have followed the rule laid down by him [Johnson]
Sir, if one man undertake to write the life of another, he
undertakes to exhibit his true and real character: but this
can be done only by a faithful and accurate delineation
of the particulars which discriminate that character."
In closing his defence, Bishop Home says : " On the whole
In the memoirs of him that have been published, there
are so many witty sayings, and so many wise ones, by
which the world, if it so please, may be at once entertained
and improved, that I do not regret their publication. In
this, as in all other instances, we are to adopt the good and
reject the evil. The little stories of his oddities and his
infirmities in common life will, after a while, be overlooked
and forgotten; but his writings will live forever, still more
and more studied and admired, while Britons shall continue
to be characterised by a love of elegance and sublimity,
of good sense and virtue. The sincerity of his repentance,
the steadfastness of his faith, and the fervour of his charity,
forbid us to doubt, that his sun set in clouds, to rise without
them: and of this let us always be mindful, that every one
who is made better by his books will add a wreath to his
crown." 1 Something over a month later, George Canning,
writing of his fictitious Gregory Griffin, launched these
shafts of satire at the Johnsonian biographers: " It must
be confessed that I have for some time intended (and have
collected materials for the purpose) as the eyes of the
world must infallibly be fixed on his exit, to favour it after
1 Olla Podrida, No. 13, June 9,

120 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

Mr. G.'s demise, with a collection of Anecdotes, Stories,
Smart Sayings, Witty Repartees, Funny Jokes, and Shining
Sentiments, under the comprehensive title of Griffiniana.
... I have however been once on the point of dropping
the design, when it was represented to me by a friend, on
whose judgment I had great reliance, c that I should act
unworthily as a biographer, and ungenerously as a friend,
in endeavouring to reduce the name of Mr. Griffin by such
a publication to the level of Joe Miller and Tom Brown;
and in rashly bringing to light, such uninteresting and
trifling effusions of momentary mirth, or occasional levity,
as would detract from the weight of his other performances ;
and such, as from their own intrinsic worth, could only
pass without ridicule, when they passed without public
observation.' " l In a more broadly satirical vein, Peter
Pindar (Dr. John Wolcot) had produced his celebrated
Bozzy and Piozzi, or the British Biographers, in 1786.

In No. II of Lucubrations, or Winter Evenings,* Vice-
simus Knox wrote " On the Character of Doctor Johnson
and the Abuse of Biography." In the course of his remarks
he says : " Few men could stand so fiery a trial as he
[Johnson] has done. . . . Biography is every day descending
from its dignity. Instead of an instructive recital, it is
becoming an instrument to the mere gratification of an
impertinent, not to say malignant, curiosity. There are
certain foibles and weaknesses which should be shut up in
the coffin with the poor relics of fallen humanity. Wher
ever the greater part of a character is shining, the few
blemishes should be covered with the pall. I am apprehen
sive that the custom of exposing the nakedness of eminent
men of every type, will have an unfavourable influence on
virtue. It may teach men to fear celebrity; and by extin-

1 Microcosm, No. 39, July 30, 1787.
8 First edition published 1788.

MODERN ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY 121

guishing the desire of fame and posthumous glory, destroy
one powerful motive to excellence. ... I think there is
reason to fear lest the moral writings of Johnson should lose
something of their effect by this unfortunate degradation.
... It was usual to write the lives of great men con amort,
with affection for them, and there ran a vein of panegyric
with the narrative. Writer and reader agreed in loving the
character, and the reader's love was increased and con
firmed by the writer's representation. An ardour of imita
tion was thus excited, and the hero of the story placed,
without one dissenting voice, in some honourable niche in
the temple of Fame. But this biographical anatomy, in
minutely dissecting parts, destroys the beauty of the whole.
... I wish that his life had been written in the manner of
the French elogts,and with the affection and reverence due to
supereminent merit. ... If he were alive, he would crush
the swarms of insects that have attacked his character,
and with one sarcastic blow, flap them into non-existence."
In the face of such diverse opinions did Boswell proceed
with his labours. It is a sure testimony to his biographical
skill and artistic sense that, in the very face of this conflict
of opinion, he held to his own notion and produced a bio
graphy which remains a standard of excellence, and of
which all succeeding biographies have been only variations.
It must have been with feelings of the deepest satisfaction
that Boswell read in the Gentleman's Magazine for May
1791, this^entence in review of the completed Life of
Johnson : \^A literary portrait is here presented which all
who knew the original will allow to be the MAN HIMSELF."^/
The observations written by Robert Anderson, M.D., in
his all-but-forgotten compilation from the narratives of
Hawkins, Boswell, and Murphy, are well worthy of a place
here as a summary of contemporary npinipn. Much has
l Vol.6i. p. 466.

122 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

been written of Bos well since 1791: very little of what
has been written excels Anderson's just remarks : " The
narrative of Mr. Boswell is written with more comprehen
sion of mind, accuracy of intelligence, clearness of narration,
and elegance of language [than are any of the others]; and
is more strongly marked by the desiderium chari capitis,
which is the first feature of affectionate remembrance . . .
and was received by the world with most extraordinary
avidity. . . . Xenophon's Memorabilia of Socrates may
possibly have suggested to Mr. Boswell the idea of present
ing and giving to the world the Memorabilia of his vener
able friend; * but he professes to have followed the model
of Mason in his Memoirs of Gray. He has, however, the
advantage of Mason, in the quantity, variety, and richness
of his materials. . . . The incidental conversations between
so eminent an instructor of mankind, and his friends, the
numerous body of anecdotes, literary and biographical, and
the letters which are occasionally interspersed, and natur
ally introduced, in the narrative part of Mr. Boswell's
ample performance, open and disclose to the eager curiosity
of rational and laudable inquiry, an immense storehouse
of mental treasure, which far exceeds, in merit and value,
the voluminous collections of the learned and ingenious
men of other nations. With some venial exceptions on the
score of egotism and indiscriminate admiration, his work
exhibits the most copious, interesting, and finished picture
of the life and opinions of an eminent man, that was ever
executed; and is justly esteemed one of the most instruc
tive and entertaining books in the English language. The
eccentricities of Mr. Boswell it is useless to detail. They
have already been the subject of ridicule in various different
forms and publications, by men of superficial understanding

1 See Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, p. 407, Dent's " Tempi/
Classics."

MODERN ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY 123

and ludicrous fancy. Many have supposed him to be a
mere relater of the sayings of others; but he possessed
considerable intellectual powers, for which he has not had
sufficient credit. It is manifest to every reader of any
discernment, that he could never have collected such a
mass of information, and just observations on human life,
as his very valuable work contains, without great strength
of mind, and much various knowledge, as he never could
have displayed his collections in so lively a manner, had he
not possessed a very picturesque imagination; or in other
words, had he not had a very happy turn for poetry, as well
as for humour and for wit." l

An "explanation" of Boswell may be left for others;
it will perhaps be enough to repeat here that apart from
any other considerations, he paid the price necessary for
the production of such a work, in labour of the severest
and most sustained kind. " I have sometimes been obliged,"
he writes, " to run half over London, in order to fix a date
correctly; which, when I had accomplished, I well knew
would attain me no praise, though a failure would have
been to my discredit." 2 Such carefulness in mere matters
of detail is, of course, of minor importance; Boswell was
willing, in addition, to subject himself to ridicule in the
attempt to bring his work up to his ideal of what it should
be. " A trick which I have seen played on common occa
sions, of sitting stealthily down at the other end of the room
to write at the moment what should be said in company,
either by Dr. Johnson or to him, I never practised myself,
nor approved of in another," writes Mrs. Piozzi. 8 True
enough; it need only be said in reply, however, that Mrs.

1 The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D., with Critical Observations on
his Works, London, 1795, pp. 4-8.

1 Advertisement to first edition of the Life.

' Napier's Johnsoniana, p. 20; Mrs. Piozzi's Anecdotes of Johnson,
p. 44-

124 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

Piozzi could not produce Boswell's Life of Johnson ! Again,
we must keep in mind the weary night hours spent by
Boswell in recording the conversations while they were yet
fresh in mind, before that " elusive and evanescent "
quality had passed from them. When these and other like
considerations are borne in mind, Boswell must have, at
least in regard to the preparation of the Life, the honour
due to one who, for the sake of the accomplishment of a
great purpose, knew how

" To scorn delights, and live laborious days."

A comparison of Boswell and John Aubrey may not be
out of place in this connexion. The two men had many
traits of character in common: both were erratic and
laughed at by their contemporaries. " He was a shiftless
person," wrote Anthony Wood * of John Aubrey, " roving
and magotieheaded, and sometimes little better than
erased. And being exceedingly credulous, would stuff his
many letters sent to A. W. with folliries, and misinforma
tions, which sometimes would guid him into the paths of
errour." The difference between the two men, and, in
particular, the superiority of Boswell that spark of genius
within him which his contemporaries did not recognise is
in nothing more clearly emphasised than in the result of
their literary efforts. Aubrey left nothing but fragments
highly interesting and most valuable to be sure but still
fragments. Boswell left a great and artistic work which he
was bold enough to compare and not without reason to
one of the world's greatest literary achievements. 2

*In The Life of Anthony Wood, Written by himself, Athenae
Oxonienses, vol. i. p. Ix. edition Philip Bliss, 1813.

* " It seems to me, in my moments of self-complacency, that this
extensive biographical work, however inferior in its nature, may in
one respect be assimilated to the Odyssey. Amidst a thousand enter
taining and instructive episodes the Hero is never long out of sight;
for they are all in some degree connected with him; and He in the

MODERN ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY 125

We may safely conclude that BoswelFs work was a work
of culmination: he did what other men for long had said
should be done, or what they had tried, feebly, to do. 1
Almost the only contribution made by him was the manner
and the amount of recorded conversation; nothing equal
to it had ever before been known. Yet not for this reason
need we detract from BoswelTs labours; present-day
criticism is telling us that the Iliad and the Odyssey are but
compilations " culminations," if you will. Those who
cast these works into their final forms are sure of their place
in the Temple of Fame. Professor Walter Raleigh justly^"
says : " The accident which gave Boswell to Johnson and /
Johnson to Boswell is one of the most extraordinary pieces .
of good fortune in literary history. Boswell was a man o^
genius ; the idle paradox which presents him in the likeness ^
of a lucky dunce was never tenable by serious Criticism,
and has long since been rejected by all who bring though\
to bear on the problems of literature. ... He had simpli- \
city, candour, fervour, a warmly affectionate nature, a
quick intelligence, and a passion for telling all that he knejjj**-*
These are qualities which make for good literature. They
enabled Boswell to portray Johnson with an intimacy a^d
truth that has no parallel in any language. T . p-T^e
Life would be a lesser work than it is if it had not the unity
that was imposed upon it by the mind of its author*' ~Tne
portrait is so broad and masterly, so nobly conceived and

whole course of the History, is exhibited by the Author for the best
advantage of his readers." Advertisement to second edition of the
Life of Johnson. Cf., also, Percy Fitzgerald: " Mr. Boswell was, in
his way, an artist; nothing is more remarkable in his great book
than the tact, the self-denial, the power of selection, and the
rejection of all that is surplusage." Life of James Boswell, vol. ii.
P- 253-

1 See George Birbeck Hill's interesting, but much too laudatory,
article in Macmillan's Magazine, May 1891, pp. 37-43; and Percy
Fitzgerald's caustic reply to it in the Life of James Boswell, vol. ii.
pp. 281-4, note.

iz6 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

so faithful in detail, that the world has been content to look
at Johnson from this point of view and no other." l

It must not be thought that Boswell produced a perfect
life. " It cannot be denied," continues Professor Raleigh,
" and Boswell himself would have been the first to admit it,
that there are aspects and periods of Johnson's career which '
are not and could not be fully treated in the Life." 2 As has
so often been said, the Johnson that Boswell knew was
the Johnson of a privileged old age ; the lights and shades
of those slow years of struggle to fame are not in Boswell's
picture. What might not Richard Savage have painted, or
helped Boswell to paint, into that portion of the canvas ?
For that matter, what might not Goldsmith have done in
that direction, who knew so much better than Boswell
could ever have known what it meant to try to " set the
Thames on fire " ? We should not forget, at this point, that
Johnson once said, when asked in regard to his probable
biographer, that " the dog [Goldsmith] would write his
life best to be sure " 3 meaning of course that Goldsmith
would give it most literary grace and charm. We should
rejoice that Goldsmith did not live to write it; and should
equally rejoice that deficient as the Life is in some particu
lars, its production fell to the lot of James Boswell. More
than a half century before BoswelPs Life was published,
these words of Roger North were given to the public: " If
the history of a life hangs altogether upon great import
ances, such as concern the Church and State, and drops /
the peculiar economy and private conduct of the person
that gives title to the work, it may be a history, and a
good one; but of anything rather than of that person's
life. Some may think designs of that nature to be, like the

1 Six Essays on Johnson, pp. 9-11.
* Ibid. p. 1 1 .

3 Napier's Johnsoniana, p. 15; Mrs. Piozzi's Anecdotes of Johnson,
P- 3'.

MODERN ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY 127

plots of Mr. Bays, good only to bring in fine things: but a
life should be a picture; which cannot be good if the pecu
liar features whereby the subject is distinguished from all
others, are left out. Nay, scars and blemishes, as well as
beauties, ought to be expressed; otherwise, it is but an
outline filled up with roses and lilies." l True it is, the Life
of Johnson is not perfect: it is, however, "a picture";
it is not " an outline filled up with roses and lilies."

From the point of view of style, while the Life does not
attain the highest rank, it is yet excellent. 2 f Although
Boswell belonged to the formal school of theV^eighteenth
century, he yet had much of the directness and clarity of
Dryden and Addison, and had benefited by the conversa-^
tion of Johnson and by the style of the Lives of the Poets. /
He was, moreover, in his desire to educate himself away ^
from Scotticisms, a diligent student of English composition.
He did not, however, possess the grace and charm of Gold
smith. It would be, perhaps, too much to demand that one
man should attain the highest excellence in all departments
of literary composition. Boswell had exemplified the method
of writing biography; there were yet qualities to be contri
buted to the general form; the great literary biography
the combination of artistry and lucid, graceful, charming
style was yet to be produced.

Since 1791, the critics have been busy with Boswell.
What they have said can in no way influence his finished
labours, and their work therefore belongs only to a considera-

1 Lives of the Norths, vol. i. p. 154, edition 1826.

1 It is not going too far to agree with Percy Fitzgerald : " Too much
cannot be said of Boswell's style. We may well wonder where he
attained this happy, judicious power of narrative, so limpid and
unaffected, and without the least literary realism, or attempt at
colouring and ' word-painting.' His phrases and words are admir
ably chosen, clear and direct without the least pretence. In particu
lar passages, there is dramatic grouping of the highest kind." Life
of James Boswell, vol. ii. p. 127.

128 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

tion of the development of biography after Boswell's time.
The summary of one modern writer may yet be to the
purpose here : " By Mason and Boswell a species of litera
ture was introduced into England which was destined to
enjoy a popularity that never stood higher than it does at
this moment. Biographies had up to this time been perfunc
tory affairs, either trivial and unessential collections of
anecdotes, or else pompous eulogies from which the breath
of life was absent. 1 But Mason and Boswell made their
heroes paint their own portraits by the skilful interpolation
of letters, by the use of anecdotes, by the manipulation of
the recollections of others; they adapted to biography the
newly discovered formulas of the anti-romantic novelists, 2
and aimed at the production of a figure that should be
interesting, lifelike and true. . . . Boswell was a consum
mate artist, but his sitter gave him a superb opportunity.
For the first time, perhaps, in the history of literature, a
great leader of intellectual society was able after his death
to carry on unabated, and even heightened, the tyrannous
ascendancy of his living mind. . . . Never before had the
salient points in the character and habits of a man of genius
been noted with anything approaching to this exactitude
and copiousness, and we ought to be grateful to Boswell
for a new species of enjoyment." 3

1 This is not strictly accurate, as has been shown in this chapter.

a Rather, the novelists adapted the methods of biography.

' Edmund Gosse, Modern English Literature, pp. 252-3. May we
not also be grateful that Samuel Parr did not become Johnson's
biographer? The Rev. Wm. Field, in his Memoirs of Parr, vol. i.
pp. 164-5, records Parr's own conception of the task: " ' I once
intended to write Johnson's Life ; and I had read through three
shelves of books to prepare myself for it. It would have contained
a view of the literature of Europe : ' and making an apology for
the proud consciousness which he felt of his own ability ' if I had
written it,' continued he, ' it would have been the third most
learned work that has ever yet appeared.' To explain himself, he
afterwards added, ' The most learned work ever published, I con
sider Bentley On the Epistles of Phalaris ; the next, Salmasius on

MODERN ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY 129

Thus, at the close of the eighteenth century, did biography
culminate in what the world has since been pleased to
recognise as the true type. No one with the facts before
him can claim for Boswell that he invented a new form, or
wrote a perfect specimen of biography; but no one can
deny that, although in execution he fell short of perfection
(what mortal has yet attained it ?), in theory, purpose, plan,
he pointed out the ideal. He was not an inventor or dis
coverer, nor was he a mere theoriser. He was, in the field of
biography, a careful student, a diligent worker, and, if not
a perfect, at least a scarcely equalled, artist. The producer
of the great type did not live long to enjoy his triumph:
Boswell died May 19, 1795. The century produced no more
great biographies: there were no more Johnsons for
subjects; no more Boswells to act as biographers. To the
nineteenth century, however, the eighteenth bequeathed
a noble legacy.

the Hellenistic language.' On a third occasion, describing the nature
of his intended work, and alluding to Boswell's Life of Johnson, he
said, ' Mine should have been, not the droppings of his lips, but the
history of his mind.' "

130 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

CHAPTER VI

THE RISE OF ENGLISH AUTOBIOGRAPHY (7201799)

As a reader of biography approaches the close of the
eighteenth century, he becomes aware that autobiography
is assuming a position of the first importance. The state
ments of Mason, " In a word, Mr. Gray will become his own
biographer," and of Boswell, " Had Dr. Johnson written
his own life . . . the world would probably have had the
most perfect example of biography that was ever exhibited,"
convince us that biography is sure to become largely auto
biographical in method. 1 It is necessary, then, at this point,
where the biography and the autobiography join their
currents, to trace the rise of the latter form and its develop
ment to the close of the eighteenth century.

First of all, the student is impressed by the same back
wardness in development that was evident in the case of
biography. Practically nothing in the way of autobiography
had been published until after the middle of the seventeenth
century; most of the early autobiographical documents
lay in manuscript until the eighteenth century and after.
Moreover, it should never be forgotten that even the word
autobiography is modern: according to Murray's New
English Dictionary thefirst recorded use of the term occurred
in 1 809.2 Before this date, the autobiographical form passed

1 One recalls Longfellow's punning entry in his journal, under
date of Feb. 21, 1848: " What is autobiography ? What biography
ought to be." S. Longfellow, Life of H. W. Longfellow, vol. ii. p. 109.

a " A beautiful anthology may be formed from the Portuguese
poets, but they have no great poem in their language. The most
interesting, and the one which best pays perusal, has obtained no
fame in its own country, and never been heard of beyond it. It is

ENGLISH AUTOBIOGRAPHY 131

under various names: life narrative written by the author
himself, memoirs, journal, diary, biography by self, history
by self, etc.

The other important matter to be kept in mind is the fact
that the autobiographical element is everywhere to be
found in literature. Every time a writer puts pen to paper
he is in one way or another, to a greater or less extent,
revealing himself. We must, however, in our considerations
be careful. There may be autobiography in the Anglo-
Saxon poems, Beowulf, Widsith the Far Wanderer, and 'The
Lament of Deor, as well as in many another piece of Old and
Early English literature that we might call to mind. Suppose,
however, that we were unacquainted with the authorship
of Tennyson's Maud, and that we should say, in our wisdom,
Here is the author giving an account of his own life experi
ences! The whole system of such inference is dangerous.
Are Shakespeare's Sonnets autobiographical ? Wordsworth
tells us *

". . . with this key
Shakespeare unlocked his heart; "

to which Browning replies a

" Did Shakespeare? If so, the less Shakespeare he! "

After careful study and research, Sidney Lee has reached
" the conviction that Shakespeare's collection of sonnets has
no reasonable title to be regarded as a personal or auto
biographical narrative." 8 And thus it goes. Unless we are
certain, it is the part of wisdom not to claim as autobio-

the life of Francisco Vieira, the painter, the best artist of his age,
composed by himself. Much has been written concerning the lives
of painters; and it is singular that this very amusing and unique
specimen of auto-biography should have been entirely overlooked."
Robert Southey, Quarterly Review, vol. i. p. 283, May 1809. See
also p. 386 of the same volume where " auto-biography " again
occurs.

1 In Scorn not the Sonnet. In House.

Life of Shakespeare, p. viii.

132 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

graphical that which may not be so. 1 In this chapter, there
fore, we shall limit ourselves to those productions which
are truly autobiographic, or, at the least, autobiographic
in intention.

So far as this form is concerned, the Latin period is much
less important, and therefore far more negligible than was
the case in our consideration of biography. Ecgwin (or
Egwin), Bishop of Worcester, who died about 720 A.D.,
is reported by later biographers 2 to have written his own
life and is, for this reason, sometimes called the first
English autobiographer. Henry Morley, in his English
Writers, humorously suggests that Ecgwin might, on
account of the many impossible tales of miracles which he
told, " possibly be otherwise ranked with greater truth as
the first English artist in prose fiction." s When we come
to the Venerable Bede, however, we have a genuine piece
of self-biography brief though it may be written about
731. This sketch is appended to the Ecclesiastical History of
England (sect. 454) and reads thus :

" Being born in the territory of that same monastery [of the
blessed apostles Peter and Paul, which is atWearmouth and J arrow],
I was given by the care of my relatives, at seven years of age, to be
educated by the most reverend abbot Benedict, and afterwards by
Ceolfrid ; and from that period, spending all the remaining time of my
life in that monastery, I wholly applied myself to the study of the Scrip
tures ; and amidst the observance of regular discipline, and the daily
care of singing in the Church, I always took delight in learning, teach
ing, and writing. In the nineteenth year of my age I received deacon's
orders; in the thirtieth, those of the priesthood; both of them by

1 1 have read Percy Fitzgerald's interesting and ingenious volume,
Boswell's Autobiography, the main thesis of which is that the Life
of Johnson was put forth as " a disguised life of Boswell himself."
For many reasons, I confess myself unconverted to Mr. Fitzgerald's
opinion.

* See Chrontcon Abbatiae de Evesham, ad annum 1418. Edited by
William Dunn Macray, 1863 (Rolls Series).

8 Vol. i. pp. 338-40.

ENGLISH AUTOBIOGRAPHY 133

the ministry of the most reverend bishop John, and by order of the
abbot Ceolfrid. From which time, when I received the order of
priesthood, till the fifty-ninth year of my age, I have made it my
business, for the use of me and mine, briefly to compile out of the
works of the venerable Fathers, and to interpret and explain
according to their meaning, (adding somewhat of my own,) these
following pieces: [here follows a list of his works]." *

For our purpose, we need not linger amid the welter of
Latin church documents in the centuries which succeeded
Bede. They contain little of intrinsic value as documents
of self-revelation, and have exerted no influence on auto
biography written in English. Bede's sketch is the proto
type of all such attempts at autobiography among early
churchmen. " In the Middle Ages," writes Professor Walter
Raleigh, " a writer was wholly identified with his work. His
personal habits and private vicissitudes of fortune excited
little curiosity: Vincent of Beauvais and Godfrey of
Viterbo are the names not so much of two men as of two
books. Literature was regarded as the chief means of
preserving and promulgating ancient truths and traditions;
and authors were mechanical scribes, recorders, and com
pilers. The distinction between fact and fiction, which we
make to-day with so airy a confidence, was hardly known
to the mediaeval writer. . . . While this was the dominant
conception of art and of science, of history and of literature,
authors were, in every sense of the word, a humble class.
When it was their function to instruct, they were conduit
pipes for the wisdom of the ages : where they set themselves
to amuse, they held a rank not far above that of the
professional jesters and minstrels who were attached as
servitors to the household of some great lord or king." a
From such men we do not look for any valuable self-
records or introspective documents. To all practical intent,

Translation of Stevenson, in The Church Historians of England.
Essays on Johnson, pp. 98-100.

134 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

therefore, from the point of view of autobiography,
the period from 731 to 1573 may be regarded as a long
blank.

Nor, for the same reason, need we linger long over the
autobiographies written in Latin by other than churchmen.
Among them is one, however, that for several reasons should
not be neglected the work of Thomas Dempster, the
Scotchman, whom we have already mentioned as the com
piler of the Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Scotorum. Dempster
himself looms up out of the past as one who was almost
super-man " tall above the stature of common men; with
black hair, and skin well-nigh of the same colour; his head
immense, and his aspect kingly; his strength and courage
equal to that of a soldier " (" CaeterumfuitDempsterus vir
corpore, & animo egregius ; altitude illi super mediocrem
vulgaris bominis magnitudinem ; coma subnigrior, & cuti
color non longe dispar ; caput magnum ac totius corporis
babitus plane regius ; robur, & ferocitas, quibus vel praestan-
tissimum militem praestare posset, reque ipsa saepius se talem
exhibuit ") to adopt the words of his friend, a certain
Matthaeus Peregrinus, who added a supplement to Demp
ster's Autobiography. This formidable giant, described by
Rossi as " a man formed for war and contention, who
hardly ever allowed a day to pass without fighting, either
with his sword or his fists," seems to have been equally
intense in applying himself to mental labour, it being no
uncommon thing, according to Peregrinus, for him to spend
fourteen hours a day in reading (" Indefessus in legendo,
ita 9 ut quatuordecim diei boras librorum lectionem se con-
tinuare solitum mibi saepe retulerit "). Peregrinus further
states that Dempster's memory was such that he could
give the context of any passage from Greek or Latin quoted
to him (" non versus poetae alicuius non sensum alterius
scriptoris, sen Graeci, seu Latini (aeque enim utrumque

ENGLISH AUTOBIOGRAPHY 135

nor at,) quern statim cum longa verborum praecedentium, ac
sequentum serie verbatim referre non posset").

Dempster's Autobiography is just what we should expect
from such a man, and it may well be that his friend Pere-
grinus followed him in habits of exaggeration and falsehood.
The narrative is not long, but across its pages flash gleams
of a laborious, tempestuous, grotesque career, darkened now
and then by shadows of those wild days in Scotland and
other European countries. There are in the work, as well
in the main story and the minor episodes as in the manner
of the narrative, the germs of much fiction : how much is
true, how much is fabrication, we do not know. At the very
outset, Dempster tells us that he was one of three children
at a single birth, the twenty-fourth of twenty-nine children,
and that five of the most important events of his life
happened on the anniversary of his birth (" Thomas
Dempsterus . . . natus est . . . partu Urgemino vigesimus
quartus e liberis viginti novem quos ex una uxore pater sus-
tulit anno MDlxxtx, ipso pervigilio D. Bartholomaei, quo
die veluti fatali patriam deseruit, lauream in iure Doctoratus
est assecutus, Academiae Nemausensi adscriptus, difficilis
Tolosae litis exitum optatum sortitus, demum Serenissimi
Magni Hetruriae Duds Academicis adnumeratus Pisanis").

As an example of his remarkable precocity, he assures
us that at the age of three years he mastered the alphabet in
the brief space of one hour (" triennis omnia elementa unius
horae spatio exacte didicit "). Henry Bradley says * " there
seems reason to suspect that he may have dated his birth
a few years too late with the very object of enhancing the
marvel of his youthful precocity in learning," and con
tinues with the remark that " if the date assigned by him
be correct, his career is certainly extraordinary, even for
an age which abounded in juvenile prodigies." The ability

1 Dictionary of National Biography, article " Thomas Dempster."

136 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

to see a good story, indeed, was inherent in Dempster's
nature. We have only to mention the episode in the life
of his brother James. In a few lines, bristling with sug
gestion, Dempster tells us how James incurred his father's
hatred by marrying Isabella Gordon, the father's mistress;
and how, later, James, collecting a band of wild Gordons,
his wife's kinsmen, made an attack upon his father's retinue
in a lonely region, where two were killed on either side,
many were wounded, and the father left with seven bullets
in his leg and a sword cut on his head. Without doubt,
Dempster's story of his own life whether it be true to the
letter or fiction to the core is the most readable article in
his laboured volume. 1 Its very manner and content earn
for it a place among autobiographies composed by Britons.
Autobiography in English dates from the poetical narra
tive of Thomas Tusser, published in its first form in 1573
as a part of the author's Five Hundred Points of Good
Husbandry. The manner of the work may be judged from
the following stanzas:

" It came to pass, that born I was
Of lineage good, of gentle blood,
In Essex layer, in village fair,

That Rivenhall hight:
Which village ly'd, by Banktree side;
There spend did I mine infancy,
There then my name, in honest fame,
Remain'd in sight.

" From Paul's I went, to Eton sent,
To learn straightways, the Latin phrase,
Where fifty-three stripes, given to me

At once I had,

For fault but small, or none at all,
It came to pass, thus beat I was :
See, Udall, see, the mercy of thee,

To me, poor lad.

1 The Autobiography is the last article in the Historia Ecclesiastica
Gentis Scotorum.

ENGLISH AUTOBIOGRAPHY 137

" To London hence, to Cambridge thence
With thanks to thee, O Trinity,
That to thy Hall, so passing all,

I got at last.

There joy I felt, there trim I dwelt,
There heaven from hell, I shifted well
With learned men, a number then,

The time I past." l

In this jingling, somewhat vague manner, without dates
and usually without any careful reference to places or
particulars, Tusser continues through forty stanzas to
relate the outward events of his life. Thus much he gave as
his " Life." We can learn far more of the inner man from
his statement of the " Principal Points of Religion " and
" The Author's Belief " than from the " Life " poem.
This fact only demonstrates that we have made an advance
in our demands upon autobiographers : whereas it used to
be the custom to set forth outward events, it is to-day the
custom to reveal, so far, of course, as it may be possible for
the author to reveal, the inner man to give the breath of
distinguishing individuality. This much may be said by
way of anticipation: it remains to be seen how long auto
biography continued to be objective.

After Tusser, we have four brief autobiographies
published within a reasonably short time after their com
position. The few pages of the Life of Sir Thomas Bodley
were, as he records, " written with mine own hand, Anno
1609, December nth," although they were not printed
until 1647. The oldest prose autobiography in English,
therefore, reckoning from date of composition, Sir Thomas
Bodley's Life ranks second in date of publication. It was
preceded by An Apology written by Richard Vennar of
Lincolnes Inne, abusively called England } s Joy, printed in

1 Stanzas 3, 8, and 9, from Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry
(London, 1812), pp. 315-7.

138 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

London in I6I4. 1 Vennar wrote his Apology to defend
himself against charges of " slander, deceipt, fraud, and
cozenage," or, as he declares on the title-page, " to repress
the contagious ruptures of the infected multitude," incited
against him by the questionable management of his play
England's Joy, and by other unfortunate circumstances of
which his life seems to have been only too full. While
Vennar gives much information in regard to himself
throughout the Apology, only the first part is avowedly
autobiographical, and the whole of the production is
marked by the dominant note of defence which occa
sioned its composition. The autobiographical fragment of
Margaret Cavendish Duchess of Newcastle appeared
originally in a scarce and curious folio called Nature's
Pictures drawn by Fancies Pencil to the Life, printed in
London, 1656. Ten years later, in 1666, the first edition of
John Bunyan's Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners was
given to the public. Thus, within the period of practically
a century after the appearance of Thomas Tusser's poetical
effort, the reading public had only these four works to
satisfy whatever appetite for autobiography it may have
had. With the exception of Bunyan's work, the other
sketches are only brief narratives of events, domestic or
political. There seems to have been, in truth, a desire on
the part of all writers to reserve anything in the nature of
a record of the inner life. Sir Thomas Bodley mentions
" some other private reasons, which I reserve unto myself."
Margaret Cavendish says : " But now I have declared to
my readers my birth, breeding, and actions to this part of
my life, I mean the material parts," and then assures us

1 The British Museum Library contains what is said to be the only-
perfect copy of this book. J. P. Collier has reprinted it in vol. iii.
of his Illustrations of Old English Literature, in the introduction to
which he erroneously states that it is " the oldest piece of prose
autobiography in our language."

ENGLISH AUTOBIOGRAPHY 139

that she has written the account simply " for my own sake
. . . lest after ages should mistake in not knowing I was
. . . second wife to the Lord Marquis of Newcastle; for
my Lord having had two wives, I might easily have been
mistaken, especially if I should die and my Lord marry
again." Bunyan, on the other hand, reduces to the
minimum references to mere worldly affairs. " It is not
his autobiography, but his religious feelings and experi
ences that he records." We see, in these works, a fore
shadowing of the two types of later autobiography: the
one type, the record chiefly of outward events, the writer
considering himself merely a part of the historical current;
the other, the record of inner events, of the soul's struggles
on the journey through life, the writer considering himself
as individual, well-nigh isolated.

We come now to a consideration of the delayed publica
tion of early autobiographies; a condition of affairs
analogous to that which we have already considered in the
case of a number of early biographies. The seventeenth
century produced a considerable number of autobiographi
cal documents, few of which were given to the public until
well into the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The
following table will at once indicate the extent of this delay
in the case of seventeen of the more important works :

Died. Autobiography

first printed.

Lucy Hutchinson . . . 1620 1806

Lord Herbert of Cherbury . . 1648 1764

Sir Simonds D'Ewes . . . 1650 1845

Sir Kenelm Digby . . . 1665 1827

Robert Blair .... 1666 1754 (fragments)

Edward Hyde Lord Clarendon . 1674 1759

James Fraser of Brae . . . 1699 1738

John Livingstone . . . 1672 1754

Walter Pringle .... 1667 1723

Anne Harrison Lady Fanshawe . 1680 1829

William Lilly .... 1681 1715

140 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

Died. Autobiography
first printed.
Anthony Ashley Cooper Lord

Shaftesbury . . .1683 1859

James Melvill .... 1614 1829

Sir James Melville of Hallhill . 1617 1683

Sir John Reresby . . . 1689 1734 (in part)

John Bramston .... 1700 1845

Anne Lady Halkett . . . 1699 1875 (at length)

Such delay, of course, interfered with, any contemporaneous
and continuous development of the autobiographical type.
So long as these documents lay in manuscript there could
be no criticism to direct, no comparative study, nothing to
whet the desire for improvement of the type, no school (if
we may so term it) of autobiography. The manner of the
narrative would thus depend upon the whim of the writer;
or, at least, would follow closely the bent of his mind. There
would be no regular flow of autobiographical record; the
impulse to record one's own life would manifest itself only
at intervals. " Undeniably, autobiographical writing in
England with the single exception of the Quaker group
is sporadic until the end of the seventeenth century." 1

The Quaker group, of which mention has just been made,
is " unconnected with the secular personal records of the
time." Mrs. Anna Robeson Burr, in her valuable and highly
suggestive book, The Autobiography, has given the results
of her careful study of this group. Little more can be done
here than to give her statements. " The English Quakers
form a continuous and compact group, running steadily,
without variation in manner or method from 1624 to 1840.
No other religious movement has left so large a mass of
classified material. The autobiographical intention with the
early Friends became a dogma, as it were, of their belief,
and to leave behind a journal or an autobiography was
almost a requirement of faith. The Quaker journals form in
1 Burr, The Autobiography, p. 206.

ENGLISH AUTOBIOGRAPHY 141

themselves a complete library : they are full of incident and
adventure on land and sea, in the old world and the new;
and they display upon every page qualities of courage and
steadfastness, of simplicity and kindness which move the
heart. At the same time, they show a common lack of
imagination in dealing with their creed; there is astonish
ingly little vitality to their religious expression. When they
write of perplexities, of conversion, of prayer, of meeting,
they all employ the same style, the same terms of expres
sion. In such passages it is hard to tell if you are reading
Woolman, or Ellwood, Chalkley, Davies, Edmundson, or
Crook. Though there exists the quaintest individuality in
the character of these men, yet the religious colour of their
minds appears to be as uniform and as dun-coloured as was
the prescribed dress of their society. The stamp of George
Fox is upon every piece of these differing metals, and we
are led, therefore, back to Fox's Journal, not only as an
influential personal narrative, but as the earliest important
self-study in English, and one of the few later documents
which has an influence approaching that of our three
primary types [Caesar's Commentaries, Augustine's Con
fessions, and Jerome Cardan's De Vita Propria Liber\" 1

It is no part of our purpose to discuss in detail the various
autobiographies that have been mentioned. Having thus
far pointed out the general trend of autobiographical
narrative as far as the Quaker group, we may now turn to
a consideration of a few of the outstanding characteristics
of the more noteworthy examples those which, by reason
of certain intrinsic merits, command our attention. Just
as the autobiography of the period is sporadic, so are its
manifestations diverse. The full and free play of individual
ity is clearly seen in the manner of these early narratives.

1 The Autobiography, pp. 235-6 and 418. See the Appendix, pp.
298-9, for a list of the Quaker narratives.

142 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

In any consideration of autobiography the Life of Lord
Herbert of Cherbury written by himself will ever occupy a
conspicuous place, and with it we may here begin. This
narrative, written when its author was past sixty, was
probably never completed. Lord Herbert carefully states
his reason for undertaking the task : " I have thought fit to
relate to my posterity those passages of my life which I
conceive may best declare me, and be most useful to them."
" Those passages of my life which best declare me " : this
purpose the writer kept carefully before his mind, and what
he set out to do, he did. " Foibles, passions, perhaps some
vanity, surely some wrong-headedness ; these he scorned
to conceal, for he sought truth, wrote on truth, was truth:
he honestly told when he had missed or mistaken it." He
puts down in black and white what most men would wish to
conceal. There is withal a bold sweep to Lord Herbert's
narrative which carries the reader steadily forward. The
restless, reckless spirit of the man, evidently liking a good
fight as well as a good meal, is seen in almost every page.
We recognise him, at once, as akin to those other spirits of
his age Sir Philip Sidney, Sir Francis Drake, Sir Walter
Raleigh and catch a vision of the fulness of life which
made England the leading nation of the earth. " This is
perhaps the most extraordinary account that ever was given
seriously by a wise man of himself," wrote Horace Walpole:
an opinion with which all who read Lord Herbert's life
narrative must agree.

In the Private Memoirs of Sir Kenelm Digby we have a
narrative remarkable for a different reason. From the point
of view of inception, purpose, and method Digby's narra
tive is unusual. It was written, he tells us, in " the few
empty spaces of tedious hours, which would have been in
danger to have been worse filled if I had not taken hold of
this occasion of diversion." In short, Sir Kenelm asserts

ENGLISH AUTOBIOGRAPHY 143

that he wrote the Memoirs " without any art or care," to
preserve his virtue. " You that read, then," he continues,
" may take notice that after a long and violent storm which
took me between Rhodes and Candie, and separated me
from all the vessels of my fleet, it was my misfortune to fall
in with the island of Milo; where, while I stayed to mend
the defects of a leaky ship, and to expect the relics of the
tempest's fury, I was courteously invited ashore by a person
of quality of that place. ... I passed my time there with
much solitude, and my best entertainment was with my
own thoughts; which being contrary to the manner of
most men, unless it be when melancholy hath seized their
minds, who deem no state delightful that is not quickened
by exterior pleasures, I soon perceived that my courteous
host was much troubled at my retirement, and omitted
nothing that might avail to divert me from it; and among
other things, made me a liberal offer to interest me in the
good graces of several of the most noted beauties of that
place, who in all ages have been known to be no niggards
of their favours, which .might peradventure have been
welcomely accepted by another that had like me had youth,
strength, and a long time of being at sea to excuse him if
he had yielded to such a temptation. But I, that had fresh
in my soul the idea of so divine and virtuous a beauty [his
wife] that others, in balance with hers, did but show the
weakness and misery of their sex, thought it no mastery to
overcome it : but yet was in some perplexity how to refuse
my friend's courtesy, without seeming uncivil. In the end
... I concluded that the best way for me would be to
pretend some serious business, which of necessity did call
upon me to write many dispatches, and into several places
. . . but my facility of setting down on paper my low con
ceptions having been ever very great, I soon made an end
of what concerned business. ... I deemed it both a good

144 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

diversion for the present, and pains that would hereafter
administer me much content, to set down in writing my
wandering fantasies." x The narrative is almost wholly an
account of the love between himself and his wife, the Lady
Venetia Stanley, " whose memory begot this discourse."
" I will set down," writes Digby at the outset, " in the best
manner that I can, the beginning, progress and consum
mation of that excellent love which only makes me believe
that our pilgrimage in this world is not indifferently laid
upon all persons for a curse." The work is necessarily,
therefore, a combination of biography and autobiography,
and in manner approaches fiction. Digby uses assumed
names for all the characters and places mentioned in his
narrative. It is but a step from his method to pure auto
biographical fiction. Sir Kenelm left directions that after his
death the manuscript of this narrative should be " con
verted into a clear flame." " That the manuscript was
not destroyed," writes the editor of the printed work, " is
fortunate for those who are gratified by perusing the
description which genius gives of itself, as well as for
Digby's memory, as it contains many facts highly credit
able to his character, and tends, in some degree, to redeem
that of his wife; whilst much light is thrown by it upon the
early part of his career. As a piece of autobiography it is,
perhaps, one of the most extraordinary which is extant,
and every line bears striking evidence of the peculiar temper
and still more singular opinions of the writer." 2

The most elaborate life-narrative to come to print before
the close of the seventeenth century was the Reliquiae
Baxterianae : or Mr. Richard Baxter's Narrative of the most
Memorable Passages of his Life and Times. This great work
was written in instalments by Baxter between 1664 and the

1 Private Memoirs of Sir Kenelm Digby , 1827, pp. 321-5.
8 Ibid. pp. xliii-xlv.

ENGLISH AUTOBIOGRAPHY 145

time of his death in 1691. It was " faithfully published
from his own original manuscripts by Matthew Sylvester,"
at London, in 1696. It is a monumental work: in the words
of the editor, " You have here the history of God's early,
kind and powerful dealings with him ... of his ministerial
self . . . and some tastes and informations of his thoughts
and studies; and of his books and letters to divers persons
of different stations and quality, and also of what pens and
spirits wrote against him." It is not, however, in the
personal record that Sylvester was interested, and here we
get the notion of a contemporary opinion of the purpose and
value of autobiography. " But the great things," writes
the editor, " which are the spirit of this history are the
accounts he gives of the original springs and sources of all
these revolutions, distractions, and disasters which hap
pened from the Civil Wars betwixt King Charles the First,
to the Restoration of Charles the Second, and what was
consequent after thereupon to Church and State."

It was the desire of Edmund Calamy to edit these
Reliquiae Baxterianae and to reproduce them in the form of
an abridgment. " Mr. Orme," writes Sir James Stephen,
" laments the obstinacy of the author's literary executor,
which forbade the execution of this design. Few who know
the book will agree with him. A strange chaos indeed it is.
But Grainger has well said of the writer, that * men of his
size are not to be drawn in miniature.' Large as life, and
finished to the most minute detail, his own portrait, from
his own hand, exhibits to the curious in such things a delinea
tion of which they would not willingly spare a single stroke,
and which would have lost all its force and freedom if
reduced and varnished by any other limner, however prac
tised, or however felicitous. There he stands, an intellectual
giant as he was, playing with his quill as Hercules with the
distaff, his very sport a labour under which any one but

K

146 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

himself would have staggered. Towards the close of the
first book occurs a passage, which, though often repub-
lished, and familiar to most students of English literature,
must yet be noticed as the most impressive record in our
language, if not in any tongue, of the gradual ripening of a
powerful mind under the culture of incessant study, wide
experience, and anxious self-observation. Mental anatomy,
conducted by a hand at once so delicate and so firm, and
comparisons, so exquisitely just, between the impressions
and impulses of youth, and the tranquil conclusion of old
age, bring his career of strife and trouble to a close of
unexpected and welcome serenity. In the full maturity of
such knowledge as is to be acquired on earth of the mysteries
of our mortal and of our immortal existence, the old man
returns at last for repose to the elementary truths, the
simple lessons, and the confiding affections of his childhood ;
and writes an unintended commentary, of unrivalled force
and beauty, on the inspired declaration, that to * become
as little children ' is the indispensable, though arduous,
condition of attaining the true heavenly wisdom. To
substitute for this self-portraiture any other analysis * of
Baxter's intellectual and moral character would be a vain
attempt." 2

The predominating historical features of the Reliquiae
Baxterianae are characteristic of the later life narratives of
Sir Simonds D'Ewes, Edward Hyde Lord Clarendon, Sir
James Melville of Hallhill, Sir John Reresby, Anthony
Ashley Cooper Lord Shaftesbury, and a number of others
of lesser importance. So far as there is a common element

1 Both Calamy and William Orme have produced abridgments
of the work. Calamy remarks: " I have reduced things to that
method which appeared to me most proper. Personal reflections and
little privacies I have dropped " [italics are mine]. An Abridgement of
Mr. Richard Baxter's History of his Life and Times : By Edmund
Calamy, 1702. Calamy cast the whole into the third person.

8 Essays in Ecclesiastical Biography, vol. ii. pp. 59-61 (3rd ed.).

ENGLISH AUTOBIOGRAPHY 147

binding all these autobiographical documents together, it
may be seen in the subordination of the subjective, personal
account to the record of contemporary history. Auto
biography is yet under the domination of history. In this
particular, the development of the form runs parallel to
that of biography.

In view of the fact that The Journal of George Fox is the
great prototype of that large body of Quaker autobio
graphical literature which continued until near the middle
of the nineteenth century, we need take it alone into
consideration here. The " Great Jornall " was prepared
by Fox for the purpose of giving to the public a record of
his ministry and of his religious experience it is a religious
autobiography. It was first prepared for printing by
Thomas Ellwood, Milton's friend and pupil, and appeared
with a preface written by William Penn, in 1694; in 1911
the manuscript was reproduced for the first time in its
entirety. In the words of T. Edmund Harvey, it " was
doubtless regarded by George Fox rather as the rough
material than the final form of the work to be printed after
his death. . . . We may ask ourselves how far The Journal
as we now possess it enables us to form an accurate portrait
of Fox as a man. We gain many little details which hitherto
were lacking; here and there we may regret a certain note
of seeming harshness, or what appears to be too great an
insistence on Fox's personal part in the story. But this is
more than counterbalanced by the intense reality of all the
narrative: it is instinct with a sense of truthfulness. . . .
In one other most important respect the portrait of George
Fox given us in his Journal is incomplete and must be
supplemented by contemporary correspondence and the
evidence of those who knew him. We realise, as we read
his narrative, something of the magnetic power which
attracted his hearers, but only here and there have we a

148 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

glimpse of that tenderer side of his nature of which we read
elsewhere. . . . Hardly more than a hint is given in The
Journal of his strong family affection. . . . But this was
inevitable from the nature of The Journal, which was never
intended to be an autobiography in the full sense of the
word. Yet if the picture which The Journal gives is neces
sarily incomplete, it is more living and convincing than
many a fuller portrait of themselves which other writers
have left. As we read its pages there stands out clearly
before us the great, strong personality of its writer, with
all his shrewdness and simplicity, his untiring devotion
to his message and his power of passing it on to others.
The prophet's fire, the wise man's counsel, stirring record
of hardships bravely borne, quaint and homely touches
of human kindness, all are here." 1

We have now seen that from the first brief accounts of
domestic or political events the records of the merely
objective autobiography has steadily shown a tendency to
become more detailed and subjective. The religious type of
autobiography as exemplified in The Journal of George
Fox deepened the consciousness of the inner, subjective
life. Man was beginning to study himself as apart from
the great stream of humanity. In the eighteenth century,
contemporaneous with the Quaker group of religious auto-
biographers, we find " the first small cluster of genuinely
scientific self-students." 8 This cluster is composed of seven
whose works are similar in idea and in method: John
Flamsteed, Edmund Calamy, Roger North, David Hume,
Benjamin Franklin, Edward Gibbon, and Joseph Priestley,
of whom Franklin has been accounted greatest. Four others
of this cluster, John Dunton, William Whiston, George

1 The Journal of George Fox : edited from the MSS. by Norman
Penney. With an introduction by T. Edmund Harvey. Cambridge,
1911. Vol. i. pp. xxvii-xxx.

" See Appendix, pp. 299-300.

ENGLISH AUTOBIOGRAPHY 149

Whitefield, and Henry Alline, have written religious
confessions wholly independent as to creed.

Edmund Calamy, D.D., of whom we have already spoken
in connexion with the Reliquiae JBaxterianae, upon his
death in 1731 left an extended historical account of his life
which was not printed until 1829. It is significant of the
place that self-narrative was assuming at this period, as
well as of the care that was taken to study such models as
then existed, to find that Calamy devotes a long introduc
tion, occupying fifty-one pages in the printed edition, to a
discussion of both foreign and English models of auto
biography. After this discussion of all such works as were
known to him, he states that it is his intention " to give
what account I am able of the most noted passages of my
life; the Providence of God towards me, the times I have
lived in, and the remarks I have made on what occurred,
as far as it fell under my notice." The work shows that
Calamy was yet under the bondage of history, his long
narrative, like that of Richard Baxter, being much devoted
to the " record of the times in which he lived."

David Hume, Benjamin Franklin, and Edward Gibbon
begin a new era. These three men in their comparatively
brief, pointed, well-written narratives, break away from
the bondage of history and write of themselves. Here firsr*1
we see a clear-cut, definite sense of proportion: we see
David Hume, Benjamin Franklin, and Edward Gibbon
occupying the centre of the picture, with all other persons
properly subordinated, and all other events, save those
which closely and intimately influenced them or were
influenced by them, duly reduced to the minimum. Of the
three works, only that of Hume was left in finished form for
publication; his work, too, is the briefest of the three.
Hume's brevity was a part of his plan : " It is difficult for a
man to speak long of himself without vanity, therefore I

ISO ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

shall be short." His further statement, that " this narra
tive shall contain little more than the history of my writings,
as indeed almost all my life has been spent in literary
pursuits and occupations," shows us that literary auto-
biographers were under the same spell as were the bio
graphers of literary men of this period (1766). The purely
literary life was thought to be hardly worth recording.

Franklin's Autobiography is one of the most straight
forward and unstudied narratives of its kind in the English
language, if not in the world. Franklin was not over
whelmed by any sense of his own greatness, nor did he
have any false pride or desire to represent events in his life
as of more importance than they really were. In conse
quence, he has given us a human document of the greatest
value: from it we are able to learn Franklin, the man.
Franklin, the philosopher; Franklin, the statesman;
Franklin, the philanthropist these were but manifesta
tions of Franklin, the man; and we are able clearly to
understand these manifestations only as we understand
the man beneath them all. Francis Jeffrey evidently
missed this great truth. Jeffrey confessed that the Auto
biography was " written with great simplicity and liveli
ness," yet found fault with it because it " contains too
many trifling details and anecdotes of obscure individuals." 1
In other words, had Franklin written a long impersonal
account of the most important events of his life, Jeffrey
would no doubt have applauded the performance. Frank
lin, however, sure of himself, proceeded in his own way:
he knew that man's life is made up mostly of " trifling
details," and that the manner in which any man conducts
himself in a critical moment is determined by the manner
in which he has conducted himself in thousands of smaller

1 Edinburgh Review, July 1806; Jeffrey's Contributions to Edin
burgh Review, vol. i. p. 156.

ENGLISH AUTOBIOGRAPHY 151

transactions in the past. He knew that the Franklin who
" stood before kings " was the same Franklin who entered
Philadelphia eating one roll while he carried the others
under his arms. We can imagine him in his old age looking
back with greater pleasure to his youthful entrance into
Philadelphia than to the triumphs of his later years. He
did not forget to tell us how the small events conspired to
make him great. For this, among many other reasons,
Franklin's Autobiography takes its place in the forefront
of such narratives, and remains one of the great books of all
time.

Franklin's work constitutes the one classic American
autobiography. "It is strange,** comments Mrs. Burr,
" that this example should be at once so distinctive and so
typical, even at that date, of a separate nationality. Typical
it still remains, for even now the ideal American is Franklin
in little. The figure he presents prudent, sagacious,
prosperous above all prosperous with a healthy moral
code not in the least fanatic or strained; with humour,
energy, and importance in affairs is not this still the
American ideal at its best? Franklin, that large embodi
ment of somewhat small virtues, has left us a balanced and
complete self-delineation, after reading which we have but
one regret that his are qualities which do not bear reduc
tion from the heroic standard. It is not easy to say whether
the influence of his record has been more hurtful or useful.
Its balance is extraordinary: the writer is wholly reason
able; he is moved by common sense; he is consistently
utilitarian in every event of his life. His attitude towards
what he terms his errata is as gentle as we could wish it
possible to be towards our own. Interesting and significant
is the fact that his first erratum is a * violation of trust
respecting money ' ; which might well be written in black
and white letters over the whole United States, from Maine

152 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

to California." Not without reason does Mrs. Burr close
with the fervent wish, " Could we have pointed, as the
quintessence of our national character, but to some
courageous idealist ! " *

. It is interesting to record that Franklin's Autobiography
was first printed in a French translation in 1791. " From
this point," affirms John Bigelow, " the history of this
manuscript is a succession of surprises, which has scarce
any parallel in ancient or modern bibliography, with the
possible exception of the writings of Aristotle and the
Table Talk of Martin Luther." The manuscript consists of
four parts : the first was written during Franklin's residence
in England as agent of the Colonies, in 1771, and covers
that part of his life from his birth in 1706 to his marriage in
1730; to this point it was written for the gratification of
his family. The second part, undertaken at the solicitation
of friends, was written at Passy, while Franklin was
Minister to France. The third portion was begun in August
1788, after Franklin's return to Philadelphia, and brings the
narrative down to 1757. This third portion ends the Auto
biography so far as printed to 1867, when John Bigelow
edited the first edition ever printed from the original
manuscript, which edition contained a fourth part, consist
ing of a few pages written in 1789. Mr. Bigelow, who was
fortunate enough to secure in France the original Franklin
manuscript, made a careful study of the different published
versions of the Autobiography, and in 1909 published the
story of the fortunes of the manuscript in an introduction
to a new edition of the narrative. 2

It is remarkable, yet characteristic of most English
autobiography, that two of the greatest of such works have

1 The Autobiography, pp. 209-10.

8 The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. The Unmutilated and
Correct Version. Compiled and edited, with notes, by John Bigelow.
G. P. Putnam's Sons.

ENGLISH AUTOBIOGRAPHY 153

come to us in an unfinished almost fragmentary state.
Franklin wrote Imrriedly and unstudiedly with no eye to
publication. Edward Gibbon, on the other hand, experi
mented with and elaborated his life-story most carefully;
yet he, like Franklin, left the parts to be forged together
by another hand.

Between 1788 and 1793, Gibbon wrote six different
sketches of his life, and a seventh fragmentary sketch.
These sketches "are not quite continuous; they partly
recount the same incidents in different form; they are
written in different tones ; and yet no one of them is com
plete; none of them seemed plainly designed to supersede
the rest." These sketches were put in order by Lord
Sheffield and as the Memoirs of the Life and Writings of
Edward Gibbon were published in 1799. Not until 1894 was
the public given the complete text of Gibbon's narrative.
" A piece most elaborately composed by one of the greatest
writers who ever used our language, an autobiography
often pronounced to be the best we possess, is now proved
to be in no sense the simple work of that illustrious pen,
but to have been dexterously pieced together out of seven
fragmentary sketches and adapted into a single and
coherent narrative." 1 One note which Gibbon appended
to a part of his narrative indicates his attitude towards
much of the autobiography that appeared before his death.
" It would most assuredly be in my power," he writes,
" to amuse the reader with a gallery of portraits and a
collection of anecdotes ; but I have always condemned the
practice of transforming a private memorial into a vehicle
of satire and praise." The emphasis which Gibbon here

1 Introduction to The Autobiographies of Edward Gibbon. With
an Introduction by the Earl of Sheffield. Edited by John Murray.
" The reader may now rest assured that, for the first time, he has
before him the autobiographic sketches of Edward Gibbon in the
exact form in which he left them at his death."

154 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

insists should be thrown on the person who is the subject
of the autobiography completed for the eighteenth century
the line of organic development and established for the
future a canon of unity which, if not always followed, is
yet permanently recognised as binding.

We have already seen how the public interest in bio
graphy had grown and developed to the middle of the
eighteenth century. A similar interest in autobiography,
long recognised simply as a branch of biography and long
known as self-biography, ran parallel with the interest in
pure biography. In 1759, Johnson put the stamp of his
authority on the form in an Idler essay :

" Those relations are therefore commonly of most value in which
the writer tells his own story. He that recounts the life of another
commonly dwells most upon conspicuous events, lessens the familiar
ity of his tale to increase its dignity, shows his favourite at a distance
decorated and magnified like the ancient actors in their tragic dress,
and endeavours to hide the man that he may produce a hero.

" But if it be true which was said by a French prince, That no man
was a hero to the servants of his chamber, it is equally true that
every man is yet less a hero to himself. He that is most elevated
above the crowd by the importance of his employments, or the
reputation of his genius, feels himself affected by fame or business
but as they influence his domestic life. The high and low, as they
have the same faculties and the same senses, have no less similitude
in their pains and pleasures. The sensations are the same in all,
though produced by very different occasions. The prince feels the
same pain when an invader seizes a province, as the farmer when
a thief drives away his cow. Men thus equal in themselves will
appear equal in honest and impartial biography ; and those whom
fortune or nature place at the greatest distance may afford instruc
tion to each other.

' ' The writer of his own life has at least the first qualification of an
historian, the knowledge of the truth; and though it may be plau
sibly objected that his temptations to disguise it are equal to his
opportunities of knowing it, yet I cannot but think that impartiality
may be expected with equal confidence from him that relates the
passages of his own life, as from him that delivers the transactions
of another.

ENGLISH AUTOBIOGRAPHY 155

" Certainty of knowledge not only excludes mistake, but fortifies
veracity. What we collect by conjecture, and by conjecture only
can one man judge of another's motives or sentiments, is easily
modified by fancy or by desire; as objects imperfectly discerned
take forms from the hope or fear of the beholder. But that which
is fully known cannot be falsified but with reluctance of under
standing, and alarm of conscience: of understanding, the lover of
truth; of conscience, the sentinel of virtue.

" He that writes the life of another is either his friend or his enemy,
and wishes either to exalt his praise or aggravate his infamy; many
temptations to falsehood will occur in the disguise of passions, too
specious to fear much resistance. Love of virtue will animate pane
gyric, and hatred of wickedness embitter censure. The zeal of grati
tude, the ardour of patriotism, fondness for an opinion, or fidelity
to a party, may easily overpower the vigilance of a mind habitually
well disposed, and prevail over unassisted and unfriended veracity.

" But he that speaks of himself has no motive to falsehood or par
tiality except self-love, by which all have so often been betrayed
that we are on the watch against its artifices. He that writes an
apology for a single action, to confute an accusation, to recommend
himself to favour, is indeed always to be suspected of favouring his
own cause; but he that sits down calmly and voluntarily to review
his life for the admonition of posterity, or to amuse himself, and
leaves this account unpublished, may be commonly presumed to tell
truth, since falsehood cannot appease his own mind, and fame will
not be heard beneath the tomb." l

Not only was autobiography thus shaping the course
of biography, it was having a strong influence as well upon
the direction of English fiction. Mrs. Burr contends that
" to claim that the imaginary autobiography Robinson
Crusoe, let us say owes its being to some genuine auto
biography would be to claim too much." When we see,
however, that biography shaped the course of much early
fiction and that autobiography preceded the autobiographi
cal novel, we must conclude that at least the spirit of
biography and autobiography was so potent at this time
as to give direction to the fiction. A careful student of
English fiction has given it as his opinion that " a quick
1 Idler, No. 84, November 24, 1759.

156 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

offshoot of the biography was the autobiography, which,
as a man in giving a sympathetic account of himself is
likely to run into poetry, came very close to being a novel
[as in the case of Sir Kenelm Digby]. . . . Margaret
Duchess of Newcastle's Autobiography, published in 1656
in a volume of tales, is a famous account of a family in
which * all the brothers were brave, and all the sisters
virtuous.' Bunyan's Grace Abounding is a story of the fierce
struggles between the spirit and the flesh, and of the final
triumph of the spirit. This autobiographical method of
dealing with events, partly or wholly fictitious, has been a
favourite with all our novelists, except with the very great
est; and it is more employed to-day than ever before." 1

As we come to the end of the eighteenth century, we
thus witness a point of culmination in the development of
both biography and autobiography. Although the auto
biographical form had up to this time been considered only
a branch of biography so much so, that it had no dis
tinguishing name until 1809 it had nevertheless developed
independently, and latterly had influenced biography much
more than it had been influenced by that form. After the
work of Mason and Boswell, and the promulgation of
Johnson's opinion, the threads of biography and auto
biography unite, that of autobiography ever predominating
in the pattern, and growing ever brighter and clearer. As
Boswell's Life of Johnson in 1791 marks the high point
reached by biography in the eighteenth century, so the
narratives of Hume, Franklin, and Gibbon the latter
appearing in 1799 mark the high point of autobiography.
From this time forward, all biography is autobiographical
in method.

1 Cross, Development of the English Novel, p. 22.

BIOGRAPHY IN THE lym CENTURY 157
CHAPTER VII

BIOGRAPHY IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

" WHATEVER reason there might have been in former days
to complain of the want of due respect to the memory of
distinguished persons, it can hardly be said of our times
that an indifference prevails in regard to departed merit.
Instead of lamenting with the great Lord Bacon that c The
writing of Lives is not more frequent,' we could, perhaps
with more propriety, wish that the practice were either
limited or better directed. ... Of late years, thanks to
the officious zeal of friendship, and the active industry of
literary undertakers, biographical memoirs have become
as multitudinous, prolix, and veracious as epitaphs in a
country churchyard." Thus wrote John Watkins in iSzi. 1
His words may well stand at the beginning of any discussion
of biography in the nineteenth century, for in this century
the writing of biography became a business. The output
has been enormous, and a reader stands bewildered before
the rows upon rows of biographical volumes which con
front him upon library shelves. It is no longer possible for
one to discuss all the works that have been published, nor,
happily, is it necessary. The main line of development is
obvious.

The course of English biography since the beginning of
the nineteenth century has been determined by two influ
ences: that exerted by BoswelTs Life of Johnson, and that
similar, but more powerful influence, exerted by auto
biography. This statement may call for a little explanatory
1 In the preface to his Universal Biographical Dictionary.

158 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

substantiation, as there is no doubt misunderstanding in
regard to its full import. For example, Percy Fitzgerald has
contended that " during the last hundred years there is
not a single instance of any work that was written on
Boswell's extraordinary system." " Boswell," writes Mr.
Fitzgerald, " was attached to Johnson as a ' reporter ' of
his sayings and doings, and the bulk of his book is formed
from his own private diary or journal, artistically revised
and abstracted. His accounts of other persons came from
the same source, viz., his private diary. In ' the new era
in biography ' we cannot reckon on such an exceptional
combination as this." 1 So far, true; Mr. Fitzgerald,
however, omits entirely reference to the autobiographical
method adopted by Boswell that method of employing, as
a part of the narrative, Johnson's own letters, diaries, and
published works. To be sure, Boswell scored an unusual
success in reporting Johnson's conversation, the result of
" the fortunate accident " of Johnson's being a remarkable
talker and Boswell's being a remarkable reporter. We must
not, for the reason that the record of conversation in Bos
well's book is so rich and full, forget that such record is yet
only a part of the method. As a matter of fact, and in
summation of this point, it is not going too far to say that
every biography of any importance since the days of
Boswell's Johnson has employed, with necessary variations
of course, the methods of that great Life. Even Mr. Fitz
gerald's Life of Boswell is but a variant of the Boswell model.
The direct influence of Boswell's Life of Johnson is difficult
to trace: without having ever been translated into any
foreign language, this book has undoubtedly done more than
any other single work of its kind to point the world to the
true method of biography.

" There are few copious and profound lives of eminent
1 The Life of James Boswell, vol. ii. p. 282, note.

BIOGRAPHY IN THE 19 CENTURY 159

men," wrote Sir Egerton Brydges in 1834, " to which trie
persons recorded have not by their own pens afforded a
large portion of the materials. Almost all other lives are
comparatively dry and barren." * What Mr. Brydges has
recorded, thus early in the nineteenth century, as his own
conviction, has remained permanently and increasingly
true. Whenever a man has left an autobiography, that has
become the basis of any attempted biography; in the
absence of any such autobiographical document, there has
been a turning to journals, diaries, letters, recorded con
versations to anything, in fact, which might help the
biographer to follow the autobiographical method.

The Bos well-autobiographical method has its pitfalls.
" Boswell, the prince of biographers," writes Sir James
Stephen, " has well nigh ruined the art of biography. For
like every other art, it has its laws, or rather is bound by
those laws to which all composition is subject, whether the
pen or the pencil, the chisel or the musical chords, be the
instrument with which we work. Of those canons, the chief
is, that the artist must aim at unity of effect, and must
therefore bring all the subordinate parts of his design into
a tributary dependence on his principal object. Boswell
(a man of true genius, however coarse his feelings, and
however flagrant his self-conceit) knew how to extract
from every incident of his hero's life, and from the meanest
alike and the noblest of his hero's associates, a series of
ever-varying illustrations and embellishments of his hero's
character. The imagination of Cervantes scarcely produced
a portrait more single, harmonious, and prominent, in the
centre of innumerable sketches, and of groups which fill
without overcrowding the canvas. The imitators of this
great master have aspired to the same success by the simple
collocation of all facts, all letters, and all sayings, from
1 Autobiography, vol. i. p. 321.

160 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

which the moral, intellectual, or social nature of the main
figure on their biographical easel may be inferred. But in
order to truth of effect, a narrator must suppress much of
the whole truth. Charles V. of Spain, and Charles I. of
England, still live in picture as they lived in the flesh,
because Titian and Vandyke knew how to exclude, to con
ceal, and to diminish, as well as how to copy. Imagination
cannot do her work unless she be free in the choice of her
materials, and if the work of the imagination be undone,
nothing is done which any distant times will hoard as a
part of their literary inheritance." x We may well keep
this paragraph in mind as we consider the biographical
contribution of the years following Boswell.

The first great biography of the nineteenth century, a
work which has by many critics been ranked as second only
to BoswelPs Johnson, is John Gibson Lockhart's Life of
Sir Walter Scott (1836-8). It is to this work that we may
turn for confirmation of the influence exerted by the
Boswell-autobiographical method. Lockhart informs us
that he had made substantial progress in composing the
biography of Scott, before an autobiographical fragment,
composed by Scott in 1808, was discovered in an old cabinet
at Abbotsford. " This fortunate accident," wrote Lockhart,
" rendered it necessary that I should altogether remodel
the work which I had commenced. The first chapter . . .
consists of the Ashestiel fragment; which gives a clear
outline of his early life down to the period of his call to the
Bar July 1792. All the notes appended to this chapter
are also by himself. They are in a handwriting very different
from the text, and seem, from various circumstances, to
have been added in 1826. It appeared to me, however, that
the author's modesty had prevented him from telling the
story of his youth with that fulness of detail which would

1 Essays in Ecclesiastical Biography, vol. ii. pp. 286-7 (3rd ed.).

BIOGRAPHY IN THE 19x11 CENTURY 161

now satisfy the public. I have therefore recast my own
collections as to the period in question, and presented the
substance of them, in five succeeding chapters, as illustra
tions of his too brief autobiography. This procedure has
been attended with many obvious disadvantages; but I
greatly prefer it to printing the precious fragment in an
appendix." 1 In this manner does Lockhart acknowledge
the pre-eminent value of the autobiographical method. As
to the method followed by Lockhart throughout the
remainder of the long biography, he may again speak for
himself: " I have . . . endeavoured to lay before the
reader those parts of Sir Walter's character to which we
have access, as they were indicated in his sayings and doings
through the long series of his years making use, whenever
it was possible, of his own letters and diaries rather than
of any other materials; but refrained from obtruding
almost anything of comment. It was my wish to let the
character develop itself." 2 In other words, in the Life of
Scott we have BoswelPs method adapted to the purposes
and manner of Lockhart. 3

The Life of Scott has been freely censured and copiously
praised. Leslie Stephen says that it " may safely be de
scribed as, next to BoswelTs Johnson, the best in the lan
guage." 4 Professor Saintsbury refers to BoswelPs work
as " the only possible rival " of Lockhart's; and goes on to
say that " the taste and spirit of Lockhart's book are not
less admirable than the skill of its arrangement and the
competency of its writing; nor would it be easily possible
to find a happier adjustment in this respect in the whole

1 Preface, Life of Scott.

9 Life of Scott, vol. vii. p. 398.

3 See Life of Scott, vol. iv. pp. 150-1, for Lockhart's reasons for
not recording Scott's familiar conversation. Lockhart undoubtedly
realised that he did not possess Bos well's gift for reporting conversa
tion.

In Dictionary of National Biography, article " Lockhart."

L

i6 2 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

annals of biography." l " It is an achievement," writes
Professor Hugh Walker, " which has very rarely been
rivalled." 2 It is needful, in the face of such enthusiastic
praise, to look somewhat on the other side. Especially is
it valuable, in considering the evolution of the biographical
form, to ascertain whether Lockhart has made sufficient
advance over the work of Boswell to entitle him to an
equality of rank.

We may best begin with one of Lockhart's own estimates.
" My sole object," wrote Lockhart in a letter (January
1837) to Will Laidlaw, " is to do him justice, or rather to
let him do himself justice, by so contriving it that he shall
be, as far as possible from first to last, his own historio
grapher, and I have therefore willingly expended the time
that would have sufficed for writing a dozen books on what
will be no more than the compilation of one." 8 With this
estimate we may well consider what Thomas Carlyle wrote
in what Mr. Lang pronounces " the only contemporary
reviewal that holds its ground." 4 Lockhart's work, writes
Carlyle, " is not so much a composition as what we may
call a compilation well done. Neither is this a task of no
difficulty; this too is a task that may be performed with
extremely various degrees of merit: from the Life and
Correspondence of Hannah More, for instance, up to this
Life of Scott, there is a wide range indeed. ... To picture
forth the Life of Scott according to any rules of art or
composition, so that a reader, on adequately examining it,
might say to himself, * There is Scott, there is the physiog
nomy and meaning of Scott's appearance and transit on this
earth; such was he by nature, so did the world act on him,
so he on the world, with such result and significance for

1 A History of Nineteenth Century Literature, p. 193.
8 The Literature of the Victorian Era, p. 924.

3 Quoted in Andrew Lang's Lift of Lockhart, vol. ii. p. 117.

4 Ibid. p. 119.

BIOGRAPHY IN THE 19 CENTURY 163

himself and us : ' this was by no manner of means Mr.
Lockhart's plan. A plan which, it is rashly said, should
preside over every biography ! " 1

Carlyle lamented, too, the great length of the biography;
he reviewed it before the publication of the seventh and
last volume, a fact that Mr. Lang deplores. It is doubtful,
however, whether the seventh volume, which contains
most certainly the best of Lockhart's performance, would
have altered Carlyle's opinion to any great extent: he
would merely have insisted that there should have been
more compression more composition. " The physiognomy
of Scott," thus wrote Carlyle in the aforementioned review,
" will not be much altered for us by that seventh volume;
the prior six have altered it but little; as, indeed, a man
who has written some two hundred volumes of his own, and
lived for thirty years amid the universal speech of friends
must have already left some likeness of himself. . . . And,
in the mean while, study to think it nothing miraculous
that seven biographical volumes are given where one had
been better." " Scott's biography," concludes Carlyle, " if
uncomposed, lies printed and indestructible here, in the
elementary state, and can at any time be composed, if
necessary, by whosoever has a call to it."

Now that enough time has elapsed for us to get a proper
perspective, we must admit that Carlyle's criticism is right
and just: his review remains the best word on the subject.
The Life of Scott is much too long; if " a work of thorough
craft," as we may well admit it to be, it is yet far from being
a work of art. 2 The material lies there in " the elementary
state " : a reader travels laboriously through the vast

1 Review of Lockhart's Scott.

1 ". . . Lockhart's merit is mainly due to the excellence and
the abundance of the raw material provided for him in Scott's
ample journals and correspondence." Lee, Principles of Biography
p. 49-

1 64 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

tract of eighty-four chapters, and not infrequently, in the
all but interminable wilderness, well-nigh loses sight of
the figure of Sir Walter, or at best, sees him but dimly.
There are masses of documents letters, diaries, journals,
extracts from prefaces yet there is little selection; the
reader must devour the whole feast. The biography is a
mine to be worked: it contains rich stores of precious ore;
the reader, however, must do much toilsome digging. It is
scarcely too much to say that " the features of the man are
nowhere united into a portrait, but left to the reader to
unite as he may; a task which, to most readers, will be hard
enough." 1 One has the feeling, when reading the work,
that the writing of it must have been a great effort for
Lockhart : the book seems to lack spontaneity, the freedom
that results from the sheer joy of writing. Lockhart's style
has been highly praised, by none more liberally than by
Professor Walker. " Through the whole book Lockhart's
style is excellent. It is simple and unstrained, and wholly
free from self-consciousness. There is no attempt at fine
writing; the excellent consists in doing with complete
success what is attempted, in expressing in the most trans
lucent phrase the meaning intended to be conveyed. For
this reason the reader seldom stops to notice how high is
the quality of the English." 2 A less enthusiastic critic
might be inclined to say that although the style is clear,
it is nevertheless rather heavy; one has a feeling that in
many places more words are employed than are necessary
to convey the meaning intended. Except in a few places
notably in the story of Scott's death Lockhart does
not write more excellent English than does Boswell; we
certainly cannot acknowledge him to be master of so perfect
a style as that of James Anthony Froude.

1 Carlyle, Werner.

a The Literature of the Victorian Era, p. 923.

BIOGRAPHY IN THE 19 CENTURY 165

One thing Lockhart did supremely well, and in doing
this he followed the general trend of biographical develop
ment, and was a worthy successor to Boswell. In this, too,
he furnished a high example to all future biographers. He
set himself deliberately and firmly against panegyric and
dared to tell the story of Sir Walter's life defects and all
as honestly as it was possible for him to do so. "A stern
sense of duty that kind of sense of it which is combined
with the feeling of his actual presence in a serene state of
elevation above all petty terrestrial and temporary views
will induce me to touch the few darker points in his life and
characteras freely as the others which were so predominant." 1
He has been sufficiently and justly praised for his course in
this matter, and time has only served to fortify his position
and to discredit contemporary antagonistic criticism. At
this point, Carlyle's criticism again remains unimpaired.
" Probably," wrote Carlyle, " it was Mr. Lockhart's feeling
of what the great public would approve, that led him, open-
eyed, into this offence against the small criticising public:
we joyfully accept the omen. Perhaps then, of all the
praises copiously bestowed on his work, there is none in
reality so creditable to him as this same censure, which has
also been pretty copious. It is a censure better than a good
many praises. . . . For our part, we hope all manner of
biographies that are written in England will henceforth be
written so. If it is fit that they be written otherwise, then
it is still fitter that they be not written at all: to produce
not things but ghosts of things can never be the duty of
man." " Not of all men is it well, perhaps," says Andrew
Lang, " that biography should be written thus. Not thus
unsparingly did Lockhart think it becoming to write about
Robert Burns. But it is a thing to rejoice in, that the full

1 Lockhart in letter to Will Laidlaw, quoted by Lang, Life of
Lockhart, vol. ii. p. 127-8.

166 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

story of one great man's life can be told as Lockhart has
told the story of Scott's life. We know the worst of Sir
Walter; we have the full portrait of a man; the defects
are blazoned by the intense light of genius and goodness,
and, thus displayed, how slight they are, how high is that
noble nature above ours, if indeed it attains not to the rare
perfection of the saints ! Scott, assuredly, was not a saint,
but a man living in the world, and, it is granted by his
biographer, living too much for the world. But he lived
for other men as few of the saints have lived, and his kind
ness, helpfulness, courage, temper, and moral excellence,
his absolute, immaculate freedom from the literary sins of
envy, jealousy, vanity, shine in Lockhart's papers as an
eternal, if unapproachable example. Only a good man
could have so clearly observed, so affectionately adored,
and so excellently recorded these virtues." 1

On one other point we may take Mr. Lang's judgment, as
that of a man who speaks justly in spite of his prepossessions.
" Of the literary merits of the Life of Scott it is not possible
for one whose breviary, as it were, the book has been from
boyhood, to speak with impartiality. To a Scot, and a Scot
of the Border, the book has the charm of home, and is dear
to us as his own grey hills were dear to Sir Walter. Neces
sarily, inevitably, the stranger cannot, or seldom can, share
this sentiment. Mr. Saintsbury, now in some degree a
Scot by adoption, has, indeed, placed the book beside or
above Boswell's. That is a length to which I cannot go;
for Boswell's hero appears to myself to be of a character
more universally human, a wiser man, a greater humourist,
his biography a more valuable possession, than Sir Walter
and Sir Walter's Life. But it were childish to dispute about
the relative merits of two chefs-cPaeuvre. Each work is
perfect in its kind and in relation to its subject. The self-
1 Life of Lockhart, vol. ii. p. 121-2.

BIOGRAPHY IN THE 19 CENTURY 167

repression of Lockhart, accompanied by his total lack of
self-consciousness (so astonishing in so shy a man, when
his own person has to figure on the scene), is as valuable
as the very opposite quality in Boswell." 1

The next noteworthy success after Lockhart's Scott was
Arthur Penrhyn Stanley's Life of Thomas Arnold (1844).
The work exhibits more of condensation than does that of
Lockhart; on the contrary, it is less unified than the Scott
and exhibits more evidently the traces of painful labour.
Stanley admitted that the work was the most difficult in
which he ever engaged. It was originally the intention of
Stanley that " the several parts should have been supplied
by different writers." Fortunately, this method was
abandoned: it is almost impossible to attain unity of effect
unless one master-hand erects the structure; a mosaic,
composed of contributions from several pens, may form a
memorial volume, but hardly a biography. Stanley was
scarcely successful in his handling of Arnold's letters: he
separated the letters from the narrative, employing the
narrative " to state as much as would enable the reader to
enter upon the letters with a correct understanding of their
writer in his different periods of life, and his different spheres
of action." According to this plan the letters are given in
collections at the end of chapters. " Such a plan," says
Professor Walker, " is really a confession of failure . . .
the work of weaving the letters into the narrative, which
ought to have been performed by the biographer, is left to
the imagination of the reader." 2 Stanley did well, on the
other hand, not to sit in judgment on Arnold : " The only
question which I have allowed myself to ask in each
particular act or opinion that has come before me," he
writes in the Preface, " has been not whether I approved or

1 Life of Lockhart, vol. ii. p. 122.

Literature of the Victorian Era, p. 925.

168 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

disapproved, but whether it was characteristic of him."
Without being a remarkable type of the autobiographical
method, the Life of Arnold, by reason of its sanity, its clear
English, its sympathetic delineation arising from Stanley's
love of Arnold, is sure of its place in the history of nine
teenth-century biography.

The century was well-nigh closed when James Anthony
Froude produced the Life of Thomas Carlyle, a work which,
for skilful selection and rejection, effects of light and shade,
remarkable unity, and brilliance of style in short, for
sheer artistry, is unsurpassed; and, from a dispassionate
point of view, marks the highest summit reached by English
biography since the great work of Boswell. Froude's
Carlyle has been, ever since its publication (1882-4), a
famous battle-ground. The storm raised by Lockhart's
Life of Scott was but a summer breeze in comparison. It
might almost be said that Froude was permitted to enjoy
no peace of mind after the biography was given to the
public. It is certain that he has been grossly misjudged,
severely maligned, unjustly condemned. Matter has been
published concerning both him and Carlyle that had much
better been left unpublished. Not even yet has the storm
subsided; but it is subsiding, and when the time of clear
shining comes, Froude will get his due, and the Life of
Carlyle will be allowed without protest to take its place
where already even unfriendly critics have reluctantly
conceded it to belong in the very forefront of English
biography. This is not the place to plead the cause of
Froude; but no discussion of the Life of Carlyle, from
whatever angle, can proceed without something of adequate
adjustment of values arising from a careful view of both
sides of the case.

First, we may proceed to an examination of the method
followed by Froude and the consequent place of the bio-

BIOGRAPHY IN THE 19 CENTURY 169

graphy in the evolution of the form. Theoretically, Froude
adopted the method used by Boswell and Lockhart. " So
far [until 1860]," writes Froude, "my account of Carlyle
has been taken from written memorials, letters, diaries,
and autobiographical fragments. For the future the story
will form itself round my own personal intercourse with
him." 1 We recognise, at once, that this plan is the exact
parallel of that employed in BoswelPs Johnson. Froude,
then, cannot be said to have advanced the evolution of the
biographical form ; he worked according to the old and tried
method. He does not obtrude himself unduly upon the
scene of action; Leslie Stephen commends him for " the
skill with which he makes the story tell itself, and develops
the drama without obtruding himself as showman." 2 He
does not report Carlyle's conversation in the manner of
Boswell, although he had abundant opportunity to do so.
While he wrote a fairly full narrative, he stopped short of
the tiresome prolixity of Lockhart. In short, while his
Carlyle marks no advance in method, it does mark a distinct
advance in manner and that manner is the very essence
of Froude's literary faith and theory, the source at once of
his strength and of his weakness.

It can scarcely be denied that Froude possessed the
dramatic instinct to a high degree; history was to him
nothing if not dramatic, and few men have excelled him in
its dramatic representation. In this respect, he was like
Carlyle, of whom, in truth,"he was an ardent disciple. Now,
the dramatic instinct is prone to display itself unduly: in
the attempt to portray a striking situation there is great
danger of over-emphasis; Carlyle has frequently been
charged with such exaggeration. Somewhat similarly,
Macaulay has been charged with warping the facts to

1 Life in London, vol. ii. p. 254.
* Studies of a Biographer, vol. iii. p.

224.

1 70 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

enable him to make a picturesque phrase. But this dramatic
instinct this sure attribute of the artist is of all other
gifts essential to the great biographer. Boswell possessed
it in a high degree; Lockhart did not have it, hence the
lesser quality of his success; perhaps the absence of it
among biographers accounts for the scarcity of great
biographies. One of the best critical discussions of bio
graphy in the English language was written by William
Ewart Gladstone in his review of Trevelyan's Life of
Macaulay. 1 " A peculiar faculty," wrote Mr. Gladstone,
" and one approaching to the dramatic order, belongs to
the successful painter of historical portraits and belongs
also to the true biographer. It is that of representing
personality. In the picture, what we want is not merely a
collection of unexceptionable lines and colours so presented
as readily to identify their original. Such a work is not the
man, but a duly attested certificate of the man. What we
require, however, is the man and not merely the certificate.
In the same way, what we want in a biography, and what,
despite the etymology of the title, we very seldom find, is
life. The very best transcript is a failure, if it be a transcript
only. To fulfil its idea, it must have in it the essential
quality of movement; must realise the lofty fiction of the
divine Shield of Achilles, where the upturning earth, though
wrought in metal, darkened as the plough went on, and the
figures of the battle-piece dealt their strokes and parried
them, and dragged out from the turmoil the bodies of their
dead. . . . But neither love, which is indeed a danger as
well as an ally . . . nor forgetfulness of self, will make a
thoroughly good biography, without this subtle gift of
imparting life. By this it was that Boswell established him
self as the prince of all biographers." To him who attains
unto such " lofty fiction," much may be forgiven. And
1 Quarterly Review, vol. 142, pp. 1-50.

BIOGRAPHY IN THE 19- CENTURY 171

Froude has attained. To one who reads with open, unpre
judiced mind, the story of Carlyle's life unrolls itself with
a power not unlike that of the greatest Greek dramas. We
see, before our very eyes, the pilgrimage of Carlyle from
birth to death; we see his Titanic struggle with life; we
see him go down into the darkening shadows. One feels
oneself growing old with the hero, as one proceeds to the
end of the volumes.

This compelling power of Froude's work made itself felt
from the very first. " It would be an ill compliment to Mr.
Froude," wrote Mowbray Morris in the Quarterly Review*
" to suppose him hurt by the hard words that have been
flung at the great mausoleum he has now completed to the
memory of Carlyle. For great it assuredly is, nor in sub
stance only. Whatever be our feelings for the relics it is
intended to enshrine, whatever even we may think of the
style of the building, we must all respect the pious care and
industry of the architect. Our language is not rich in bio
graphies of this high class. BoswelPs Life of Johnson,
Southey's Life of Nelson, Lockhart's Life of Scott, Carlyle's
Life of Sterling, Stanley's Life of Arnold, Mr. Trevelyan's
Life ofMacaulay ; it would have been hard to name another
till these four volumes appeared, but in that list they will
assuredly take their place." " It seems hard to doubt the
truth of the portrait," says the reviewer in closing. " The
man that many, perhaps, who never set eyes on him in the
flesh have fashioned out of his works, it may not be; but
that this is the true and theirs the counterfeit likeness, is
surely writ large on every page, and with the man's own
hand."

The chief outcry against Froude was the self-same
outcry that was raised against Lockhart: matters were
revealed that should not have been revealed. " He is found
Vol. 159, pp. 76-112.

172 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

guilty of having said this and that, calculated not to be
entirely pleasant to this man and that; in other words,
calculated to give him and the thing he worked in a living
set of features, not leave him vague, in the white beatified-
ghost condition," to adopt Carlyle's own words. No minute
discussion of this point can here be entered into; can any
one, however, who has read with thoughtful care Carlyle's
review of Lockhart's Scott, taking the matter therein at its
plain, face value, and in connexion with Carlyle's other
utterances, both spoken and written, on the subject of bio
graphy, doubt that Froude followed the very method and
manner which Carlyle would have approved ? " Express
biography of himself he would really rather there should be
none " [but note that he does not prohibit one]; but such a
work once taken in hand, are we not sure that Carlyle him
self would have courted the most unsparingly frank delinea
tion? In the opinion of Froude's biographer he would:
" Froude was only following the principles laid down by
Carlyle himself. In reviewing Lockhart's Life of Scott,
Carlyle emptied the vials of his scorn, which were ample
and capacious, upon ' English biography, bless its mealy
mouth.' The censure of Lockhart, for ' personalities, indis
cretion,' * violating the sanctities of private life,' was, he
said, better than a good many praises. A biographer should
speak the truth, having the fear of God before his eyes, and
no other fear whatever. That Lockhart had done, and in
the eyes of Carlyle, who admired him as he admired few
men, it was a supreme merit." 1 As a matter of fact, Froude

1 Herbert Paul, Life of Froude, pp. 313-14. Read also the
pages immediately following. Mr. Froude spoke thus for himself:
" The biographies of the great men of the past, the great spiritual
teachers especially, with whom Carlyle must be ranked, are gener
ally useless. They are idle and incredible panegyrics, with the
features drawn without shadows, false, conventional, and worthless.
The only ' Life ' of a man which is not worse than useless is a ' Life '
which tells all the truth so far as the biographer knows it. He may

BIOGRAPHY IN THE igrn CENTURY 173

erred not so much in what he published, for which, indeed,
he has been thoroughly castigated, as in what he did not
publish. In his desire to pass lightly over certain matters,
he without doubt left them dark, told them in a way that
left room for wrong inferences. Had he expressed fully and
clearly, so far as he knew the truth, matters which he later
gave in the posthumous pamphlet, My Relations with
Carlyle, his method would have been less vulnerable.
Nothing is ever gained by giving just enough to whet
curiosity, and then leaving the matter dark.

It was not from any desire to do injustice to Carlyle that
Froude abstained from reporting his conversation. He
had thought the matter over carefully, and had come to
much the same conclusion as had Lockhart before him. " To
report correctly the language of conversations, especially
when extendedover a wide period, is almost an impossibility.
The listener, in spite of himself, adds something of his own
in colour, form, or substance." 1 Froude no doubt realised
that he did not possess the gift of reporting conversation;
even Boswell, as we know, " Johnsonised " his notes of the
Doctor's talk. 2 Moreover, Carlyle's talk was so much like
his writing that it was not necessary for Froude to give

be mistaken, but he has at least been faithful, and his mistakes may
be corrected. So perhaps may some of mine, especially if particular
papers have been purposely withheld from me." My Relations with
Carlyle, p. 40.

1 Carlyle's Life in London, vol. ii. p. 443. J. W. Cross reached the
same conclusion, as he tells us in the Preface to the Life of George
Eliot : " I have refrained almost entirely from quoting remembered
sayings of George Eliot, because it is difficult to be certain of com
plete accuracy, and everything depends upon accuracy. Recollec
tions of conversation are seldom to be implicitly trusted in the
absence of notes made at the time. The value of spoken words
depends, too, so much on the tone, and on the circumstances which
gave rise to their utterance, that they often mislead as much as they
enlighten when, in the process of repetition, they have taken
colour from another mind. ' All interpretations depend upon the
interpreter.' "

- See chap. vii. of Fitzgerald's BoswelVs A utobiography.

174 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

much of it. " I heard him flinging off the matter intended
for the rest of the series [of Latter Day Pamphlets] which
had been left unwritten," records Froude, " pouring out,
for hours together, a torrent of sulphurous denunciation.
No one could check him. If any one tried contradiction, the
cataract arose against the obstacle till it rushed over it and
drowned it. But, in general, his listeners sat silent. The
imagery, his wild play of humour, the immense knowledge
always evident in the grotesque forms which it assumed,
were in themselves so dazzling and so entertaining that we
lost the use of our own faculties till it was over." x Who
that is acquainted with Carlyle's writings could fail to
recognise " the imagery, the wild play of humour, the
grotesque forms " here mentioned ? And when Carlyle
himself has written them all out largely and unstintedly,
Froude may well be excused from attempting to report,
lamely, what was no doubt practically impossible to report
accurately.

The deliberate errors which have been charged upon
Mr. Froude have a remarkable way of disappearing under
careful scrutiny. Mr. David Wilson's " multiply the
number of errors found in vol. i. p. 5, by the total number
of pages, 1860, and then consider seriously what such a
book is worth," 2 is more misleading, even as hyperbole,
than anything which Froude has written. Even the " gey
ill to deal with," of which so much has been made, is found
in the Life in its correct form. 3 Moreover, if Carlyle was
" gey ill to deal with," as is conceded, there cannot be
any doubt that he was also at times (not always, to be
sure nobody says so much) " gey ill to live with." Leslie
Stephen, a careful student of the matter, and a critic not
inclined to be too lenient towards him, exonerates Froude

1 Life in London, vol. ii. p. 41. * Mr. Froude and Carlyle, p. 103.
* Life in London, vol. ii. p. 91.

BIOGRAPHY IN THE 19- CENTURY 175

from wilful error : " I have heard Froude accused of ...
a malicious misrepresentation of the man whom he chose
as his prophet. I believe such a view to be entirely mis
taken." 1 An interesting example of the manner in which
Froude has been misrepresented is found in the Intro
duction to New Letters and Memorials of "Jane Welsh
Carlyle (p. xx) where Sir James Crichton-Browne says:
" It is characteristic of the looseness of Froude's methods
that he states in the * Life in London ' (vol. ii. p. 408) that
the manuscript of the * Letters and Memorials * was placed
in his hands in June 1871, whereas Carlyle, in February
1873, speaks of it in his will as being still in his possession;
and, indeed, a number of his notes to it actually bear date in
that year." Reference to Froude's own statements quickly
clear the matter up. Froude distinctly states (p. 412) that,
after receiving the manuscript in June 1871, he sent it to
John Forster, and (p. 414) that, at the close of 1873, " again
without note or warning, he [Carlyle] sent me his own
and his wife's private papers, journals, correspondence,
reminiscences, etc."

" I cannot recognise the Carlyle of Mr. Froude in the nine
volumes as the real and total Carlyle I myself knew," com
plains Professor David Masson. 2 Most assuredly may
Professor Masson thus complain! Had he written a Life
of Carlyle, it would have been Masson's Carlyle that was
delineated, and Froude could, with as much justification,
complain that in it he could not recognise the real and total
Carlyle whom he himself knew. Froude's work need not

1 Studies of a Biographer, vol. iii. p. 221. Cf. Stephen's letter to
Charles Eliot Norton: " Still, I do fancy that I understand Froude
a little better than before. He was terribly put about by the respon
sibility, and did, I believe, try to speak the truth, though he may
have been misled by his love of the graphic." Quoted in Frederic
Maitland's Life of Stephen, p. 483. See also Stephen's article on
Carlyle in Dictionary of National Biography, and the essays on
" Carlyle's Ethics " and " Froude " in vol. iii. Studies of a Biographer.

* Carlyle Personally and in his Writings, pp. lo-xi.

176 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

for this reason be depreciated. A biography represents the
biographer's conception of the subject, just as a portrait
represents what the artist has seen in his subject. We all
recognise that a portrait is not all of the man, nor yet just
the man we knew: the spirit of life is lacking, just as surely
as something we saw in the man, which the artist did
not see, is lacking. Just so a biography cannot be the
living man that every one of his friends knew. Stanley
complained of this fact in his Preface to the Life of Arnold,
where he speaks of those " who will painfully feel the
contrast which probably always exists in the case of any
remarkable man, between the image of his inner life, as it
was known to those nearest and dearest to him, and the
outward image of a written biography, which can rarely be
more than a faint shadow of what they cherish in their own
recollections the one representing what he was the other
only what he thought and did ; the one formed in the atmo
sphere which he had himself created the other necessarily
accommodating itself to the public opinion to which it is
mainly addressed." The testimony of contemporaries of
Charles Kingsley does not leave one with the same con
ception of Mr. Kingsley as one gains from reading the Life
by Mrs. Kingsley, yet she insists, " we speak that we do
know, and testify to that we have seen." l It is eternally
true that a man is persona : he assumes different masks
when observed by different people masks produced,
perhaps, by something in the vision of those who do the
observing. This truth should always be kept in mind, in
judging any biography. " I must take the story," writes
Leslie Stephen of Froude's Carlyle, " not as definitive truth,
but as an aspect of the truth seen from a particular point
of view." 2 Nothing more just or more discriminating

1 Life and Letters of Charles Kingsley, vol. ii. p. 477
2 Studies of a Biographer, vol. iii. p. 223.

BIOGRAPHY IN THE 19x11 CENTURY 177

has ever been written by way of criticism on a great
biography.

In the main features, Froude has given us the true
Thomas Carlyle. Of this there is ample testimony. " By
nobody," writes Mr. W. G. Collingwood, " more than by
Mr. Ruskin was Carlyle's reputation valued, and yet he
acknowledged that Mr. Froude was but telling the truth
in the revelations which so surprised the public, and much
as he admired Mr. Norton, he deprecated the attack on
Carlyle's literary executor, whose motives he understood
and approved." 1 Professor Masson, too, has given some
what reluctant testimony to the general value of Froude's
work in the complete series of Carlyle books : " Nor must
we forget the prodigious interest and impressiveness, all in
all, of those nine volumes, or the fact that they themselves
contain, whether in the autobiographical letters and
extracts or in Mr. Froude's own comments and narrative,
so much indirect contradiction and rebuke of the paltry
misjudgment of Carlyle which many of the readers of the
volumes have carried away from them that the persistence
of such readers in their misjudgment can be accounted for
only by the radical smallness of the average mind, its
inability to grasp or appreciate anything very uncommon." 2
To Horace Traubel, Walt Whitman expressed his opinion
thus : " The books do not have such a black influence over
me are on the contrary inspiring put some rich blood
into my poor veins. The Carlyle Froude's Carlyle is its
own excuse for being: I do not sympathise with the howl
against it. What justifies it to me is the fact that this is
Carlyle that and nothing else : just Carlyle: not a picture
of what he should have been, but of what he was: my
simple criticism of Froude's life would be, that it gives the

1 The Life and Work of John Ruskin, vol. ii. p. 243.
* Carlyle Personally and in his Writings, pp. 9-10.

M

178 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

man as he was, growl and all." l It is needless to quote
other such testimony. What those need to do who are
inclined to judge Froude by the statements of his enemies
is to read with close scrutiny the Life of Carlyle, and then
compare " chapter and verse " with the criticisms. The
exercise will prove wholesome. The hopelessness of setting
aside the Life of Carlyle is clearly evident to any careful
student. " Of all Froude's books," writes P. Hume Brown,
" it is doubtless the one which will preserve his name the
longest; the eminence and distinctiveness of its subject
and the skill of the biographer combine to make it a repre
sentative book of an epoch, and as such it has its only
companion in Boswell's Life of Johnson" 2

Trevelyan tells us that Macaulay's was " one of the
happiest lives that it has ever fallen to the lot of a biographer
to record." 3 How very different from the task that Froude
had in hand: if Macaulay's was one of the happiest lives,
Carlyle's was one of the unhappiest, most heavy-laden.
The tasks of Trevelyan and of Froude are hardly compar
able. Set over against the portraits of Carlyle by Watts
and Millais and Whistler, the truth of the picture limned by
Froude is not impeached. Froude may have painted after
the manner of Titian and Vandyke, yet what he has pro
duced is high art: what he perceived, that he has drawn
imperishably. " Working with consummate skill upon
magnificent materials, Froude has constructed a character
and has left a picture of life-enthralling interest. If his
Carlyle be one of the most misleading of biographies, it is
also one of the most fascinating, and should it ever be
superseded and consigned to the literary lumber-room,
English readers will be the poorer by the loss of one of the
most readable books in the language. In sheer literary

1 With Walt Whitman in Camden, vol. ii. p. 296.

8 In Chambers' s Encyclopedia of English Literature, vol. iii. p. 503.

* Life of Macaulay, vol. ii. p. 468.

BIOGRAPHY IN THE 19 CENTURY 179

skill even Froude never surpassed it." l There is nosign that
Froude's work is in danger of being set aside. " Froude had
so much confidence in the essential greatness of the man,"
writes Mr. Herbert Paul, " that he did not hesitate to show
him as he was, not a prodigy of impossible perfection, but
a sterling character and a lofty genius. Therefore his
portrait lives, and will live, when biographies written for
flattery or for edification have been consigned to boxes or
to lumber-rooms." 2

At the very close of the century (1900) appeared Alex
ander V. G. Allen's Life of Phillips Brooks, a work worthy
to be named among the greatest of English biographies.
Beyond doubt it marks the highest point attained by an
American biographer. Mr. Allen has worked along the
familiar Boswell-autobiographical method. There is not a
large amount of conversation recorded, but the extracts
from letters, diaries, notebooks, and newspapers are copious,
strictly relevant, and chosen with rare discrimination.
Although the Life of Brooks marks no advance in method
of biography, it does stand as a remarkable culmination
and fulfilment of the theory which Boswell did so much to
put into practice. After reading Mr. Allen's work one feels
able in regard to Phillips Brooks to formulate answers to
the questions suggested by Carlyle: " How did the world
and man's life, from his particular position, represent
themselves to his mind ? How did co-existing circumstances
modify him from without; how did he modify these from
within ? With what endeavours and what efficacy rule
over them; with what resistance and what suffering sink

1 Literature of the Victorian Era, p. 875. While I am far from
agreeing with all that Professor Walker has written of Froude and
of Carlyle in this admirable volume, I am glad to say that I consider
his estimates surprisingly just. They seem to me an evidence of the
new light in which Froude may yet be held.

1 Life of Froude, p. 313.

1 8o ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

under them ? In one word, what and how produced was
the effect of society on him; what and how produced was
his effect on society ? " Carlyle's further statement forms
sufficient commentary upon the Life of Brooks : " He who
should answer these questions, in regard to any individual,
would, as we believe, furnish a model of perfection in
biography." x

The century produced few other biographies worthy to
be mentioned along with the great models which we have
just considered. Beyond Southey's Life of Nelson, Mrs.
Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Bronte, and Trevelyan's Life of
Macaulay, all other biographies seem on a lower plane.
John Forster's Life of Dickens, Mrs. Kingsley's Life and,
Letters of Charles Kingsley, and Hallam Tennyson's Memoir
of Alfred Tennyson, without marking any advance in the
evolution of the form, perhaps follow the greater works at
the least distance. Carlyle's Life of Sterling, which will be
considered later, is in a class by itself.

The master biographies appear the greater when con
trasted with the works of those who have found the
Boswell-autobiographical method a snare. Of the latter
we need mention only William Hayley's Life of Cowper,
William Roberts' Life of Hannah More, Thomas Moore's
Life of Byron, and J. W. Cross' Life of George Eliot. All
four of these biographers made the attempt to allow the
letters and other autobiographical material to tell the life-
story of the subject; all of them, in one way or another,
failed to attain great success. Mr. Hayley not only made
poor use of Cowper's letters, he also succumbed to the
temptation of lavish panegyric. " We might imagine,"
wrote Robert Sou they in the Annual Review, " that, when
he sat down to compose, he had provided himself with a
list of all the laudatory and ornamental epithets in the
1 Essay on Burns.

BIOGRAPHY IN THE 19 CENTURY 181

English language, on which he rang his changes in conjunc
tion with every name that occurred. It would not be easy
to find a single person mentioned without some panegyric
addition; and this perpetual strain of compliment throws
a finical and artificial air over his language, totally repug
nant to the tone of manly sincerity." l Cowper was one of
the best letter-writers that England has produced; a fact
which makes Hayley's failure all the more lamentable.
" Further " we quote again from Southey's review
" the thread of narrative is broken, and all due proportion
of length to importance of matter destroyed by such an
intermixture [of letters and narrative as made by Hayley].
On the whole, we cannot consider it as a just model of this
species of composition. . . . That the familiar letters of
men of eminence are of themselves highly pleasing, no one
will call in question; or that they form excellent matter for
the use of the biographer who may, with great advantage,
introduce portions of them, as illustrations of character
and incident. It is only to this chequered mode of mingling
them entire, with the staple of the writer's narration, that
we venture to propose our objections." William Roberts
complained that he found " difficulty in reducing his
materials within the compass " of the four volumes forming
the Life of Hannah More a statement in itself an ad
mission of inability to distinguish values. Moreover, Miss
More's letters are connected by the slenderest thread of
dateless narrative.

Considering the greatness of the opportunities which the
subject offered to him, it is hardly too much to say that
Moore's failure with the Life of Byron is perhaps the most
conspicuous of the century. Never had a biographer greater
opportunities: a storm-tossed life full of passion and ad
venture, letters among the best in the English language,
acquaintance of long standing all these advantages were
1 Pp. 457-62 (1803).

1 82 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

Moore's. He seemed to realise his own inability to cope
with the task: he professed to give only The Letters and
Journals of Lord Byron with Notices of his Life. As a matter
of fact, Moore was not equal to the work: the stormy
spirit of Byron a Satan in revolt was too great, too
intractable for the biographer to compass. Moore was not
a biographical artist. In the two heavy folio volumes of the
Life, Byron lies buried under a mass of material. Moore is
discursive, in addition; he adds notes on every possible
subject; he uses no selection and rejection. Even the style
of the biography is poor. One realises the force of Carlyle's
criticism : " A mass of materials is collected, and the
building proceeds apace. Stone is laid on the top of stone,
just as it comes to hand; a trowel or two of biographic
mortar, if perfectly convenient, being spread in here and
there, by way of cement ; and so the strangest pile suddenly
arises, amorphous, pointing every way but to the zenith,
here a block of granite, there a mass of pipe-clay; till the
whole finishes, when the materials are finished; and you
leave it standing to posterity, like some miniature Stone-
henge, a perfect architectural enigma." x After reading the
Life of Byron, the reader realises, too, that he has a right
to demand of the biographer an interpretation an artistic
production; that he should not be left to sit down before
an undigested mass. " If only good material and literary
capacity had been needed, Moore's Byron ought to have
been great." 2 One can appreciate the triumph of Froude
after tasting the failure of Moore.

Mr. Cross' failure was due, perhaps, to his carrying the
autobiographical method too far. " With the materials in
my hands," he writes in the Preface, " I have endeavoured
to form an autobiography (if the term may be permitted)
of George Eliot. The life has been allowed to write itself

1 Werner. a Walker, Literature of the Victorian Era, p. 924.

BIOGRAPHY IN THE 19 CENTURY 183

in extracts from her letters and journals. Free from the
intrusion of any mind but her own, this method serves, I
think, better than any other open to me, to show the
development of her talent and character. . . . Excepting
a slight introductory sketch of the girlhood, up to the time
when letters became available, and a few words here and
there to elucidate the correspondence, I have confined
myself to the work of selection and arrangement." Not
thus, however, are great lives written: interpretation is
wanting; the public demands a portrait. " The biography
of George Eliot as here given is a gigantic silhouette,
showing how her figure rose against a dull background.
Background and figure are alike dull. . . . The figure is
large and imposing, but it is lifeless." l It is perhaps better
to err in over-emphasising lights and shadows than to make
both " background and figure alike dull." " By keeping
himself so much out of sight," suggests the Rev. Thomas
Davidson of Mr. Cross, " the writer only avoided Scylla to
fall into Chary bdis, and succeeded in making a book dull and
lifeless that should have been unusually full of interest." 2
A biography only becomes " full of interest " as it assumes
artistic form under the interpreting touch of the biographer.
Mr. Cross had done better, perhaps at least as well if he
had merely published George Eliot's correspondence and
journals. Great biography, in the opinion of the nineteenth
century, is not attained after Mr. Cross' plan.

The nineteenth century produced at least one who may
be called a professional biographer; " no one else," at any
rate, " made biography so much his business " as did John
Forster, the great and influential editor of The Examiner.
Forster was fond of history, and, like Carlyle, to him history
crystallised into biography. He began his biographical

1 Edinburgh Review, vol. 161, pp. 514-53.

1 Chambers' s Encyclopedia, article " Biography."

r84 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

labours as editor of the Lives of Eminent British Statesmen
(1837-39), to which he contributed a number of the Lives,
afterwards (1864) expanding one of his contributions into
the elaborate and important Sir John Eliot, A Biography.
From these historical studies, it was a natural step into
the field of literary biography, and here Forster wrought
largely. His work consists of the Life and Adventures
[later the Life and Times] of Oliver Goldsmith (1848), the
Life of Walter Savage Landor (1869), the Life of Charles
Dickens (1872-74), and the unfinished Life of Jonathan
Swift (1875). In none of these biographies did Forster
achieve the highest success: all of them are diligently,
laboriously, and well wrought, good works of craft,
lacking however the hall-mark of artistic genius, the
dramatic instinct, " the touch which imparts life." His
Landor and Dickens must remain authoritative, the mines
from which all later biographers of these men must dig;
for Forster was a personal friend of both and had access
to materials no longer available. He was Landor's literary
executor and Dickens' most intimate friend. It can hardly
be said that a reader turns to any of these biographies for
the sheer pleasure of reading unless, perchance, it be to
the Goldsmith ; one soon gets the impression that these
are works to be consulted rather than read. The example
of Forster leads one to the conclusion that great biographies
are not to be produced simply by turning to the business
of writing them; as in the case of poets, biographers seem
to be born rather than made.

A noteworthy feature of this century was what may be
termed the habit of reconstructing a biography; that is,
the gathering together of all available historical documents,
facts, and traditions relative to some person and from these
distilling something like the true story of this person's
pilgrimage through life. The habit began on a large scale

BIOGRAPHY IN THE 19 CENTURY 185

not very auspiciously it may be remarked with William
Godwin's Life of Chaucer (1803). This work has been suffi
ciently ridiculed by Robert Southey, Walter Scott, and
Professor Lounsbury. Scott rightly complains that God
win's researches into the records have produced only " one
or two writs addressed to Chaucer while clerk of the works;
the several grants and passports granted to him by Edward
III. and Richard II. which had been referred to by former
biographers; together with the poet's evidence in a court
of chivalry, a contract about a house, and a solitary receipt
for half a year's salary. These, with a few documents refer
ring to John of Gaunt, make the appendix to the book, and
are the only original materials brought to light by the
labours of the author." l And yet, cries Scott, " behold
two voluminous quartos ! " " It is," writes Professor
Lounsbury, " perhaps the earliest, though unhappily not
the latest or even the largest, illustration of that species of
biography in which the lack of information about the man
who is the alleged subject is counterbalanced by long
disquisitions about anything or everything he shared in or
saw, or may have shared in or seen. . . . Godwin's life of
the poet may indeed be declared to deserve the distinction
of being the most worthless piece of biography in the
English language certainly the most worthless produced
by a man of real ability." 2 Robert Southey expressed the
wish that the plan on which Godwin attempted to write
the Life of Chaucer might " remain for ever unique." 3

The work of such reconstruction in spite of Godwin's
conspicuous failure has gone steadily forward from Scott's

1 Edinburgh Review, Jan. 1804. Scott wrote in a letter to George
Ellis (March 19, 1804), "... nor have I either inclination or talents
to use the critical scalping knife unless, as in the case of Godwin, where
flesh and blood succumbed under the temptation." Lockhart's Life
of Scott, vol. i. p. 414.

* Studies in Chaucer, vol. i. pp. 192-4.

* Annual Review, vol. ii. p. 456.

1 86 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

Dryden (1808) to Sidney Lee's Shakespeare (1898). Really
valuable work has been done and a certain success attained
by David Masson, whose Life of Milton and History of his
Time (1859-1880) and Drummond of Hawthornden will long
remain as monuments of painstaking scholarship; by
James Spedding in his Life of Bacon (1861); by Professor
Thomas Lounsbury in his Studies in Chaucer (1892); and
by George A. Aitken in his Life of Richard Steele (1889),
which may be recognised as " the fullest and most trust
worthy existing contribution towards the life and achieve
ments of a distinguished man of letters who died more than
a hundred and eighty years ago." *

This work of reconstructing biographies has been greatly
aided by the collection and publication of all available
material which collection and publication it has indeed
stimulated and fostered. Diaries such as those of Pepys
and Evelyn; Journals as of Wesley, Fox, and Scott;
volumes of Correspondence without number; such editions
as those put forth by Andrew Clark of John Aubrey's
4 Brief Lives ' and of the Life and Times of Anthony Wood,
together with the publications of such associations as the
Chaucer Society- are making the work of the redivival
biographer easier.

The scientific spirit which entered into historical writing
at the beginning of the nineteenth century has dominated
the writing of such biographical reconstruction as has just
been discussed. Biography, as a form of history, has felt
the effect of " the machinery of research," and can never
again be the unauthentic, half-traditionary thing it was
before. 2 In the cases of all those whose lives have not been

1 Austin Dobson, Eighteenth Century Studies, " The Latest Life
of Steele," Dent's " Wayfarer's Library."

8 " In the nineteenth century the science of history underwent a
sort of industrial revolution. The machinery of research, invented
by the genius of men like Mabillon, was perfected and set going in al

BIOGRAPHY IN THE 19 CENTURY 187

produced by contemporaries, or by those closely con
temporary, biography has followed the direction of modern
scientific research; in the case of contemporary work, it
follows the carefully arranged autobiographical method,
which in turn is dominated by scientific accuracy.

In the first half of the nineteenth century there was a
definite turning of English biography to foreign countries
for subject matter. The impetus to this wider outlook was
given chiefly by Thomas Carlyle, " the really efficient inter
mediary between the mind of Germany and that of Eng
land." Carlyle, with his enthusiasm for Goethe, and with
his essays on German literature, aided by the rising influ
ence of Berthold George Niebuhr's historical writings, paved
the way for German biography written in English. We are
not surprised, therefore, to find that it was to Germany
that English biographers first began to turn, to an appre
ciable extent, for subjects. The list of such biographies is
not inconsiderable; and, in the main, where both have
written of the same man, the work done by British, has
scarcely been excelled even by German, biographers.
George Henry Lewes began his Life of Goethe at a time
when no German author had undertaken the task; in fact,
it is no exaggeration to say that the spur given by this
endeavour of Lewes proved the stimulus for the beginning,
by the Germans themselves, of modern German biography.
It is significant that Lewes dedicated his work to Thomas
Carlyle, as to one " who first taught England to appreciate
Goethe." It was not, perhaps, until the appearance of
Dr. Albert Bielschowsky's Life of Goethe (1895) that the

the archives of Europe. Isolated workers or groups of workers grew
into national or international associations, producing from archives
vast collections of material to be worked up into the artistic form
of history. The result of this movement has been to revolutionise
the whole subject." James Thomson Shotwell, Encyclopedia
Bntannica, article " History."

1 88 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

Germans produced a biography of their great poet worthy
to take its place with that by Lewes. In 1882, J. H. W.
Stuckenberg published the first English biography of
Immanuel Kant, likewise at a time when even in Germany
little attention had been given to the life of the philosopher,
and when German biographies of him were far from satis
factory. To the department of German biographical his
tory Carlyle's Frederick the Great (1858-65) and John Robert
Seeley's Life and Times of Stein (1878) remain as monu
mental contributions. " Surely," writes Professor Walker,
" no higher compliment was ever paid to a historian than
that which is implied in the German belief that, down to
the opening of the German archives, and the publication of
the correspondence of Frederick in the eighties, Carlyle's
work was the best, not only as a general history of Frederick,
but as a study of his campaigns." * In a lesser way, William
Stigand's Heine (1875) anc ^ James Simes' Lessing (1877)
demonstrate the competence of the English biographer in
the province of German literature. Many German bio
graphical works were meanwhile translated into English,
such as the Life and, Letters of Niebuhr, 2 the Life of Schleier-
macher* and Heinrich Diintzer's Schiller and Goethe.
Before the end of the century English biographers had
become thoroughly international. Henry Morley with his
fascinating Life of Jerome Cardan (1854); J^ n Morley
with his Rousseau (1873), the first full biographical account
of the French philosopher in English, published when
" even France had nothing more complete than Musset-
Pathay's Histoire de la Vie et des Outrages de J. J. Rousseau
(1821) "; and John Addington Symond's Life of Michael-
angelo Buonarroti (1893), based on studies in the archives

1 Literature of the Victorian Era, p. 66.

2 Edited and translated by Susanna Winkworth.

3 As unfolded in his Autobiography and Letters, translated by
Frederica Rowan.

BIOGRAPHY IN THE 19 CENTURY 189

of the Buonarroti family at Florence, have helped to
uphold the traditions of English biography abroad.

So strong is the personal element in a publishing com
pany or a magazine that a record of its life necessarily
assumes the form, not so much of history as of biography.
Two of the oldest publishing houses of Britain have been
thus biographically chronicled. The first to turn seriously
to such narrative was Samuel Smiles, who, after John
Forster, came nearest to being a professional biographer,
though on a lower plane. In 1891 he completed his John
Murray, the full title of which reveals the scope of the
work attempted. 1 It was the intention of Smiles to give a
" full picture of the literature and principal men of letters
of the first half of the present [nineteenth] century "; and
not alone this, for by " going still farther back to the life
and correspondence of the late Mr. Murray's father [to]
include, to a certain extent, the literature of the times of
Dr. Johnson, Dr. Langhorne, Dr. Cartwright, and others."
In 1897 Margaret Oliphant followed with William Black-
wood and his Sons, only two volumes of which she lived to
complete. Mrs. Oliphant's work excels in the delineation
of character most of her portraits, even to the slight
sketches, are well done but it lacks something of the con
centration and coherence of Smiles'. America, likewise, has
produced two literary histories on this same biographical
principle. Benjamin Blake Minor in his The Southern
Literary Messenger summarises the history of this aspiring
but ill-fated magazine, and incidentally somewhat of the
story of many of the authors who became well known in the
annals of nineteenth-century American literature; for this
magazine, it may be noted, during its comparatively brief
and troubled career, introduced many of these authors to

1 A Publisher and his Friends. Memoir and Correspondence of the
late John Murray, with an account of the Origin and Progress of the
House, 1768-1843.

190 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

the reading public. It is to be regretted that Mr. Minor did
not develop more fully the work to which he set his hand.
Much more elaborate in both design and execution in fact,
one of the best contributions to this class of biographical
literature is J. Rainey Harper's The House of Harper*
Mr. Harper's volume contains excellent reminiscences of
both American and English authors, and thus binds together
the course of English literature in the Old World and the
New.

Although during the nineteenth century the distinction
between history and biography was clearly recognised,
nevertheless, in many biographical works, there was a close
commingling of the two. In some instances, this comming
ling was the deliberate intention of the writer; in others,
the almost necessary result of the subject chosen for bio
graphical treatment. For example, although David Masson
indicated on the title page of his Life of John Milton that he
intended the work to be more than a Life* he felt it neces
sary to repeat in the Preface that he meant it to be not
merely a biography of Milton, " but also, in some sort, a
continuous history of his time." Those critics, therefore,
who have criticised the work from the point of view of pure
biography, and who have maintained that Professor Masson
has buried Milton " under a load of digressive dissertations,"
are misjudging him : he at least did what he started out to
do. Carlyle, in his Oliver Cromwell and Frederick the Great,
found that he could scarcely do otherwise than go beyond
the mere personal narrative; the lives of his subjects, he

1 Although The House of Harper was published in 1912, it has been
thought best to mention it here.

* The Life of John Milton : narrated in connexion with the political,
ecclesiastical, and literary history of his Time. Carlyle spoke of
" David Masson, sincere and sure of purpose; very brave, for he
has undertaken to write a history of the universe from 1608 to 1674,
calling it a ' Life of John Milton.' " Quoted by Campbell Fraser in
Biographia Philosophica, p. 246.

BIOGRAPHY IN THE 19 CENTURY 191

perceived, were inextricably bound up with the history of
the times. Not alone biography, then, nor yet simply
history, but history presented biographically, these two
works fulfil the purpose Carlyle had in mind. " It was an
enormous undertaking," says Froude of the Frederick,
" nothing less than the entire history, secular and spiritual,
of the eighteenth century." l To attain success in such an
undertaking was no small matter, and yet success Carlyle
attained. " The book [Frederick]," continues Froude,
" contained, if nothing else, a gallery of historical figures
executed with a skill which placed Carlyle at the head of
literary portrait painters." a After reading the work, Pro
fessor Barrett Wendell commented thus enthusiastically:
" Such a mass of living facts for somehow Carlyle never
lets a fact lack life I had never seen flung together before;
and yet the one chief impression I brought away from the
book was that to a degree rare even in very small ones it
possessed as a whole the great trait of unity. In one's
memory, each fact by and by fell into its own place; the
chief ones stood out; the lesser sank back into a confused
but not inextricable mass of throbbing vitality. And from
it all emerged more and more clearly the one central figure
who gave his name to the whole Frederick of Prussia. It
was as they bore on him from all quarters of time and space,
and as he reacted on them far and wide, that all these events
and all these people were brought back out of their dusty
graves to live again. Whatever else Carlyle was, the unity
of this enormous book proves him, when he chose to be, a
Titanic artist." 3 M. Taine felt the power of Cromwell :
" His narrative," writes the French critic, " resembles that
of an eye-witness. A Covenanter who should have collected
letters, scraps of newspapers, and had daily added reflec-

1 Life of Carlyle in London, vol. ii. p. 86. Ibid. p. 284.

8 English Composition, p. 158.

192 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

tions, interpretations, notes, and anecdotes, might have
written just such a book. At last we are face to face with
Cromwell. . . . Would that all history were like this, a
selection of texts provided with a commentary! I would
exchange for such a history all the regular arguments, all
the beautiful colourless narrations of Robertson and
Hume." 1 All in all, wrestlings with combinations of
history and biography have ever proved most difficult;
Carlyle's triumphs have scarcely been surpassed.

Of one other type of biography Carlyle left a model in
the Life of John Sterling (1851). A few years before,
Carlyle had written that " there is no heroic poem in the
world but is at bottom a biography, the life of a man : also,
it may be said, there is no life of a man, faithfully recorded,
but is a heroic poem of its sort, rhymed or unrhymed." 2
It remained for him to produce, in memory of his friend,
" an unrhymed heroic poem." Julius Hare had first written
a Life of Sterling 3 which, in its account of Sterling's
religious life, did not please Carlyle. " He had waited," says
Froude of Carlyle, in telling the story of the Life of Sterling,
4t partly from want of composure, partly that the dust might
settle a little; and now, having leisure on his hands, and
being otherwise in the right mood, he re-read Sterling's
letters, collected information from surviving relatives, and
without difficulty indeed, with entire ease and rapidity
he produced in three months what is perhaps the most
beautiful biography in the English language. . . . Sterling's
life had been a short one. His history was rather that of the
formation of a beautiful character than of accomplished
achievement; at once the most difficult to delineate, yet
the most instructive if delineated successfully. . . . Some-

1 History of English Literature (Edinburgh, 1871), vol. ii. pp. 470-1.

2 Sir Walter Scott.

3 Prefixed to Essays and Tales by John Sterling, 1848.

BIOGRAPHY IN THE 19 CENTURY 193

thing of the high purpose which Carlyle assigns to Sterling
was perhaps reflected from himself, as with a lover's
portrait of his mistress; yet his account of him is essentially
as true as it is affectionate." l The work is much greater
than Johnson's Life of Savage, which it resembles; indeed
it is difficult to find a work with which to compare the Life
of Sterling : it belongs in the class of those commemorative
poems, Lycidas, Tbyrsis, In Memoriam. On John Sterling,
Carlyle is, beyond all cavil, " definite and final." 2

More and more, as the century drew near its close, did
the conviction deepen that the great biography is a work
of art, a created, a " fictive " thing. 3 " The biographer,"
writes the Rev. Thomas Davidson, " must be more than
the mere realist who can photograph facts he must be
something of the idealist as well, for he has to create as
well as to reproduce: and we value a biography exactly
in proportion as its author has succeeded in creating for us
the character of a new man or woman to be added to our
own personal acquaintance." 4 It is impossible not to feel
the force of this truth; as has been suggested by Gladstone,
and as has been proved by so many biographies, no mere
transcript can give us a notion of the man. Hence arises the
necessity of the biographer's being also an artist, and of the

1 Carlyle's Life in London, vol. ii. pp. 68-74.

1 Trevelyan regrets that Macaulay's prejudice prevented his
reading Carlyle's Sterling. " Little as he was aware of it, it was no
slight privation . . . that one who so keenly relished the exquisite
trifling of Plato should never have tasted the description of Cole
ridge's talk in the Life of Sterling a passage which yields to nothing
of its own class in the Protagoras or the Symposium." Life of
Macaulay, vol. ii. p. 460.

3 Note what Mr. Oliver Elton has to say in this connexion: " In
all the dramatic scenes of Scott's life he [Lockhart] shows the power,
though he never falls into the risks of the novelist. We do not feel
that the scene has been arranged in his fancy afterwards, and the
values perverted to give a nobler effect than the truth." A Survey
of English Literature, 1780-1830, vol. i. pp. 414-5. Cf. also what
Wordsworth wrote, quoted on p. 230 of the present work.

* Chambers's Encyclopedia, article " Biography."

N

194 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

public's conceding to him the freedom to work as an artist.
Not thus, indeed, is the task of the biographer lightened;
instead it is made far more difficult and dangerous.
" Modern scholarship demands, of course, that there shall
be no transgressions against the truth "; with this statement
of Professor Albert Elmer Hancock we must all agree; but
until, in his own phrase again, biography attains " the
dramatic vitality of fiction," l we cannot allot to it the
highest, indeed its true, place in literature.

The line between truth and fiction in life narrative is
perilously shadowy. " The distinction between biography
and fiction is easily obliterated when the greatness of the
subject has elements of the sublime, and when the tempta
tion to add to the interest of the description by means of
exaggeration is strong." 2 At this point, we recognise that
in no other department of literature is an author confronted
with a more perilous task than when he undertakes to
write biography. We are reminded of Egerton Brydges*
Imaginative Biography, the title of which he explains by
saying that he has erected " an imaginary superstructure
on the known facts of the biography of eminent char
acters." 3 Mr. Brydges* volumes contain examples of the
method, as the title is a warning of the danger, into which
every biographer may stray.

The work faintly shadowed forth by John Boston, and
continued from Leland to Rose's New General Biographical
Dictionary, culminated in this century in the monumental
Dictionary of National Biography. This work originated in
the mind of George Smith in 1 88 1, and, as first contemplatedf"
was to be universal in scope; upon the advice of Leslie
Stephen, however, it was determined that it should be only
national. Stephen held the editorship from November

1 A. E. Hancock, John Keats.

3 J. H. W. Stuckenberg, Life of Immanuel Kant, Preface.

8 Imaginative Biography (1834), Preface.

BIOGRAPHY IN THE 19 CENTURY 195

1882 until April 1891, when he was succeeded by Sidney
Lee, who had Been Mr. Stephen's assistant since March 1883,
and joint editor of the work from the beginning of 1890.
The first volume appeared in January 1885, and, according
to plan, the succeeding volumes were issued quarterly
without interruption. Thus was fulfilled the design of " a
complete dictionary of national biography which should
supply full, accurate, and concise biographies of all note
worthy inhabitants of the British Islands and the Colonies
(exclusive of living persons) from the earliest historical
period to the present." Only one other such work the
Biographia Britannica had ever been brought to com
pletion in England, Not unfittingly was it said that,
" Similar works have been produced in foreign countries
under the auspices of State-aided literary academies, or
have been subsidised by the national exchequers. It is in
truer accord with the self-reliant temper of the British race
that the Dictionary of National Biography is the outcome
of private enterprise and the handwork of private citizens." *
Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography, edited by
James Grant Wilson and John Fiske, 1887-89, while filling
an important place, falls far below the Dictionary of National
Biography, in both plan and execution. It is less definitive,
in that it is not limited to deceased persons, and was pro
duced much too rapidly and hence without the proper com
pleteness. A Dictionary of American Biography on a proper
plan is yet a desideratum.

We have heretofore remarked that during this century
biography became a business : in no other manner, perhaps,
did the extent of this business and likewise the extent of
the demand for biography make itself so demonstrably
evident as in the number and scope of the " Biographical

1 See " A Statistical Account," vol. Ixiii. Dictionary of National
Biography.

196 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

Series " which have become so marked a feature of our
time. Mr. John Morley, in 1877, projected the English Men
of Letters series which became the model for most of those
which have followed. We have but to mention the English
Men of Action, English Worthies, English Statesmen,
Eminent Women, The Queen's Prime Ministers, Famous
Scots, Great Writers, Heroes of the Nations, Westminster
Biographies, Great Craftsmen, Makers of British Art,
Modern English Writers, Great Educators, American Men
of Letters, The World's Epoch-Makers, English Men of
Science, and The Master Musicians, to give some notion of
the place in English literature filled by these " Biographical
Series."

The principal object of these different series is to present
in brief compass the essential facts in the lives of the sub
jects; in other words, most of the biographies assume the
form of biographical essays at best, artistic and delightful
sketches; at worst, industrious compilations. "My chief
employment at this time," wrote Leslie Stephen to Charles
Eliot Norton, "is doing a little book on Sam. Johnson, for
a series of which Morley is editor. ... I am half ashamed
of the business in one way, for it seems wicked to pick the
plums out of poor old Bozzy, and yet that is all that is to
be done." 1 The value of such series for reference has been
amply demonstrated by the manner in which they have
supplied a demand; the methods employed, apart from the
" plum-picking " mentioned by Stephen, are the necessary
result of the limits set by the scope of the series, and are
nowhere better set forth than in Mrs. Jebb's statement in
regard to the volume on Bentley contributed by Professor
R. C. Jebb to the English Men of Letters series. " He greatly
enjoyed writing this book," says Mrs. Jebb, " though the

1 In letter (Dec. 23, 1877) quoted by Frederic Maitland, Life of
Leslie Stephen, pp. 304-5.

BIOGRAPHY IN THE 19x11 CENTURY 197

lesson it taught him was never again to have part or lot in
a series of any kind. It is a sort of Procrustean bed. No
matter how much an author has to tell, his narrative must
be cut off if it grows beyond a certain length. Now, his
writing was never diffuse, and to compress what was
already compressed to the limit of artistic proportion was
in his judgment to spoil. . . . When printed it was found
to exceed by fifty pages the designated number allotted for
the series, and the author had to find what time he could
for pruning its excess." l In short, the series illustrate
commercialised biographical production.

A respectable volume devoted to nineteenth-century
criticism of biography could be collected from such reviews
as those written by Southey, Scott, Jeffrey, Carlyle, Glad
stone, et al., and from prefaces and introductions to bio
graphies, as well as from scattered statements in the
biographies themselves. Biography has proceeded, however,
without formal study; it is highly significant that no
separate volume devoted wholly to the criticism of bio
graphy appeared 2 until the publication of Sir Sidney Lee's
"Leslie Stephen Lecture" at Cambridge 1911, on the
Principles of Biography, to which volume we must neces
sarily go for a brief summation of all the past criticism of
English biography. As far back as 1835, ^ mav De pointed
out, Francis Jeffrey distinguished three kinds of biographies
those dealing " chiefly with the lives of leaders in great
and momentous transactions "; those deriving their interest
from diaries and journals, the works of " autobiographers
who, without having themselves done anything memorable,
have yet had the good luck to live through long and interest
ing periods " ; and those dealing with " philosophers and
men of genius and speculation . . . whose biographies are

1 Life ofR. C. Jebb, pp. 232-5.

1 Except the brief sketch by Edward Edwards in A Handbook to
the Literature of General Biography (1885).

198 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

to be regarded either as supplements to the works they
have given to the world, or substitutes for those which they
might have given . . . histories, not of men, but of
minds." 1 These types are recognised to-day substantially
as set forth by Jeffrey.

It was in this review, also, that Jeffrey pleaded the cause
of the man of letters. He pleaded, likewise, for the recog
nition of what Johnson called the art of " writing trifles
with dignity." " Wheresoever there is power and native
genius," wrote Jeffrey, " we cannot but grudge the sup
pression of the least of its revelations; and are persuaded
that with those who can judge of such intellects, they will
never lose anything by the most lavish and indiscriminate
disclosures. Which of Swift's most elaborate productions*
is at this day half so interesting as that most confidential
Journal to Stella? Or which of them, with all its utter
carelessness of expression, its manifold contradictions, its
infantine fondness, and all its quick-shifting moods, of kind
ness, selfishness, anger, and ambition, gives us half so strong
an impression either of his amiableness or his vigour ? How
much, in like manner, is Johnson raised in our estima
tion, not only as to intellect but personal character, by the
industrious eavesdropping of Boswell, setting down day by
day in his notebook the fragments of his most loose and
unweighed conversations ? Or what, in fact, is there so
precious in the works or the histories of eminent men from
Cicero to Horace Walpole as collections of their private
and familiar letters ? What would we not give for such a
journal such notes of conversations, or such letters, of
Shakespeare, Chaucer, or Spenser? The mere drudges or
coxcombs of literature may indeed suffer by such dis
closures as made-up beauties might do by being caught

1 Edinburgh Review, Oct. 1835, " Memoirs of Sir James Mackin
tosh "; Contributions to the Edinburgh Review, vol. iv. pp. 501-7.

BIOGRAPHY IN THE 19 CENTURY 199

in undress: but all who are really worth knowing about
will, on the whole, be gainers; and we should be well con
tent to have no biographies but of those who would profit,
as well as their readers, by being shown in new or in nearer
lights. ... So far, therefore, from thinking the biography
of men of genius barren or unprofitable because presenting
few events or personal adventures, we cannot but regard
it, when constructed in substance of such materials as we
have now mentioned, as the most instructive and interest
ing of all writing embodying truth and wisdom in the
vivid distinctness of a personal presentment enabling us
to look on genius in its first elementary stirrings, and in its
weakness as well as its strength and teaching us at the
same time great moral lessons, both as to the value of
labour, and industry, and the necessity of virtues, as well
as intellectual endowments, for the attaining of lasting
excellence." The nineteenth was the century of triumph for
men of letters, and for just such biographical representa
tion as Jeffrey here discusses.

A great century of fulfilment it was in this department
of letters! With a flood of what was worthless or only
ephemeral, there were also produced a few works which
must long endure. A tribute is also due to the English
reading public in that, in an age reputedly given up to the
reading of fiction, readers have demanded biography in
quantity well nigh equal to that of fiction. A century
which produced so many men worthy of record, so many
biographies worthy of their subjects, and readers in such
abundance, is a century worthy of the most careful study,
and one destined to leave a lasting impression upon the life
of mankind.

;oo ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

CHAPTER VIII

AUTOBIOGRAPHY IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

AUTOBIOGRAPHY, no less truly than biography, was
characteristic of the nineteenth century. A student of the
form is at first inclined to be overwhelmed by what seems
an " embarrassment of riches." He soon discovers, however,
that excellence is rare, and that the line of development, if
somewhat subtile, is yet clear. We have already seen that
biography has developed in the direction of a method a
method more or less carefully followed by all competent
biographers. The development of autobiography, on the
other hand, has been in the direction of a manner and
that a manner of personal revelation. There are vital
differences between biography and autobiography. Bio
graphy has been admirably referred to as " a study sharply
defined by two definite events, birth and death." Thus, a
true biography is complete it is a finished product wrought
by an artist out of materials apart from himself. Thejtrue
autobiography, however, is but a torso it cannot be com
plete; and it is spun from the very vitals of its author. We
must expect, then, in autobiography, wide manifestations
of personality with much less limitation of method than in
biography. The study of nineteenth-century autobiography
becomes, therefore, a study of lives personally revealed of
personal revelations falling into groups determined not so
much by conscious purpose or imitation as by similarity of
mind and character, or by the force of some dominant
intellectual movement.

In the light of these considerations, it becomes evident

AUTOBIOGRAPHY IN 19 CENTURY 201

that autobiography impinges upon the realm of psychology;
autobiographies are psychological documents of the greatest
importance. It is significant, in this connexion, that the
only books in the English language devoted exclusively to
a consideration of autobiography Anna Robeson Burr's
The Autobiography , and Religious Confessions and Con-
fessants are written from the psychological point of view. 1
The pioneer work of Mrs. Burr in this department of
literature and psychology helps us to an understanding of
principles involved in the manifest tendency of English
autobiography to arrange itself into groups.

Mrs. Burr, following Gustave Le Bon, points out that all
persons writing their own lives during the same decade or
half century would not necessarily fall into the same group.
It has already been remarked, for example, that different
groups may exist during the same era: thus, in England, A

the Quaker journalists form a separate and distinct cluster,
unconnected with the secular personal records of the time.
Sporadic cases of self-study occur wholly outside of any
contemporary influences. Where people have met and
known one another, or observed and imitated one another,
or have merely fallen under similar prevailing influences,
we are warranted in grouping them together. Where con
temporary self-biographies display the same methods of
presentation, the same subjective view-point, similar sides
of frankness, similar corners of reticence, we are warranted
in grouping them together. As to the personal influence
exerted by an autobiographer, and the imitation consequent
thereupon, definite conclusions are not possible. " Proof
in chapter and verse/' remarks Mrs. Burr, " is not always

1 These books, it may be well to state, are not limited to a discus
sion of English works; they are comparative studies. The reader's
attention is also called to a recent German work, Georg Misch's
Geschichte der Autobiographic. So far as I know these are the only
books dealing directly with the subject.

202 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

forthcoming; the subject himself may be ignorant of an act
of imitation which seems plain to the observer. Man is here
yet again the child at play. Once the student of these
narratives has come to cultivate a feeling for personal
influences, difficult as they may be to analyse and define,
there grows up a conviction on the whole subject that is
deep and unshakable."

Four clearly defined groups may thus be discerned in the
nineteenth century: a group of imitators of Franklin and
Gibbon; a group of literary self-analysers, religious and
introspective in tone; a scientific group; and a literary
artistic group formed about the Pre-Raphaelite movement. 1
In addition to these groups, there exists a great body of
self-biographers who seem to have written for no other
reason than that they were " driven into a fashion of self-
explanation which belonged to the time." 2

The autobiographies of Franklin and Gibbon to which
may be added that of David Hume have been recognised
since their publication as classics. They stimulated many
others to write similar records, most of which follow the
prototypes at a great distance. Every one who is in the
least familiar with English literature knows of the auto
biographies of Franklin, Gibbon, and Hume; perhaps it is
only to the specialist that the names of Thomas Holcroft,
William Hutton, Richard Edgeworth, James Lackington,
Samuel Romilly, Catherine Cappe, Thomas Bewick, and
William Gifford are familiar. It would be difficult to deter
mine the extent of direct stimulation to self-delineation
exerted by these three works; it is, however, a matter of
literary history that the habit of autobiography followed
immediately and extensively in their wake.

In the group of literary self -analysers we observe a

1 See Appendix, pp. 300-2.

2 The phrase occurs in Mrs. Oliphant's Autobiography, pp. 4-5,
and was written in 1885.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY IN 19 CENTURY 203

remarkable diversity of purpose and personality. The sad
wail of Egerton Brydges fills two volumes of a work inter
esting because it shows " how a man of real talent and love
of literature may live a long life with a longing desire to do
something great, and then * die and make no sign.* " J
John Gait tells his life story because it occurred to him that
his own adventures were as singular as those of the heroes
of many novels and that it might be as easy to draw for the
materials of a book on the memory as upon the imagination;
in addition to which motive he adds, " I had a mercenary
object in view, besides other considerations." William
Wordsworth in The Prelude, or Growth of a Poet's Mind,
" undertook to record, in verse, the origin and progress of
his own powers, as far as he was acquainted with them."
The Prelude he intended as merely introductory to The
Recluse, the two works " to have the same relation to each
other as the ante-chapel has to the body of a Gothic church " ;
his minor pieces, " properly arranged, were to have such
connexion with the main work as to give them claim to be
likened to the little cells, oratories, and sepulchral recesses,
ordinarily included in those edifices." In short, Wordsworth
deliberately planned and brought partially to completion
a vast autobiographical temple in verse, and thus stands
unique among the autobiographers of the century. 2 Leigh
Hunt says of his autobiography that " a more involuntary
production it would be difficult to conceive " ; whereas
Sir Samuel Romilly records that he wrote " for himself,
himself alone." Coleridge called the Biographia Liter aria
" an immethodical miscellany."

The scientific group, containing some great names
Darwin, Huxley, Bain, Mill, Wallace all of whom wrote

1 Samuel Longfellow, Life of H. W. Longfellow, vol. i. p. 331.

1 Wordsworth also wrote a brief prose autobiographical sketch
which forms chapter ii. of Christopher Wordsworth's Memoirs of
William Wordsworth.

204 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

their lives with" the scientific intention," is best represented
by Herbert Spencer's " natural history of himself," of which
the " two immense volumes, for thoroughness, veracity,
and scrupulous exactness, form the culminating achieve
ment of scientific self-delineation." The literary-artistic
group formed about the Pre-Raphaelite movement, con
taining the names of W. Holman Hunt, W. M. Rossetti,
and John Addington Symonds, came to fullest expression
in the Praeterita of John Ruskin.

Mrs. Burr has shown quite convincingly that the subjec
tive tendency rises during certain social and mental condi
tions, and falls during others; and that this process is the
same whatever the nation. Comparison shows that the
conditions under which the subjective tendency rises or falls
are similar conditions. The general law made manifest may
be thus stated: *Ihe subjective autobiography groups itself
about the great intellectual movements and changes of the
world) and lessens or disappears in times of material change.
In England, political activities keep the percentage of self-
examinations extremely low until much later than in other
countries. English literature shows cases of this kind no
earlier than 1600. Of twenty important secular autobio
graphies written before 1700, but six are personal. The vio
lent fluctuations just after the Restoration, followed by the
Quaker and other religious movements, mark the first high
point; the second is not reached until the nineteenth
century when the great scientific upheaval shifted the whole
intellectual point of view.

" Just as the iron filings rise and cluster about a magnet,"
concludes Mrs. Burr, " so do men's individualities rise to
expression under the influence of a current of thought.
The impulse is not to be explained by the general theory
that warlike periods of national life are apt to be followed
by an outburst of literary and creative energy. The English

AUTOBIOGRAPHY IN 19 CENTURY 205

and Italian tables [of autobiography] both give examples
of the rise in the self-study at a time of general literary
stagnation, preceding marked intellectual changes. The
English scientific group begins at the very ebb of the
greater literary activities of the nineteenth century. Find
the dawn of new ideas, find the moment when men's minds
begin to submit to the shaking power of an intellectual
change, and there you will find the attempt at self-under
standing expressed in a group of personal records. The
observation of great movements at work in himself causes
a man fresh interest in himself: the observation of a similar
movement at work in others makes a man wish to state his
position, to define his credo. The atmosphere of doubt,
restlessness, insecurity, caused by intellectual upheavals,
produces in the serious mind a desire to clear the ground
for himself, and to aid others produces, in a word, the
autobiographical intention. And so we find these cases
following the law, and grouping themselves about move
ments of intellectual significance." l

Among the miscellaneous, ungrouped autobiographies
of the century we find the most diverse manifestations of
personality. They vary all the way from the " wandering
memorials of my own life and casual experiences," as
Thomas De Quincey calls his Autobiographic Sketches, and
the dream-phantasies of his Confessions of an Opium Eater,
to General Ulysses S. Grant's straightforward and soldierly
Memoirs. Cardinal Newman reveals himself in his Apologia
pro Vita Sua ; his brother, Francis Newman, in the Phases
of Faith. Lord Broughton and Augustus J. C. Hare are as
voluminous as Mrs. Oliphant and Philip Gilbert Hamerton
are brief. The kind of autobiographical document pro
duced is governed by the personality of the writer; we
do not know just what to expect when we pick up such a
x The Autobiography, pp. 186-7.

206 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

document for the first time any more than we know what to
expect when we are introduced for the first time to some
one whom we have never before seen or heard of. The
manner is the method a part of the man himself.

In all the realm of English autobiographical literature
there exists no more poignantly sad, pathetic narrative
than the fragment left by Mrs. Oliphant. Of the many
volumes written by this brave, overworked little woman
it is the one which deserves to live longest. In the most
unassuming manner touched perhaps by a little too
much of self-pity she tells the story of a life upon which
sorrows crowded in swift succession and over which hung
much of the gloom voiced in Greek poetry; as we read, a
fragment of the Greek anthology insistently echoes through
our consciousness :

" Alas! Peristera, sad ills you bore;
The Fates work ever thus,
And the worst evils that they have in store
Are never far from us." x

Although her sketch closes with a note of despair which
renders further utterance impossible, the whole is not the
work of a pessimist. In spite of heaped-up sorrow, Mrs.
Oliphant never lost faith in the eternal goodness of God;
she was one of those who " marched breast forward, never
doubting clouds would break."

Lord Broughton's Recollections of a Long Life, and
Augustus J. C. Hare's The Story of my Life, each extending
to six volumes, exhibit the extreme length to which recent
autobiographies have attained. The work of Mr. Hare is
more typical ; that of Lord Broughton, privately printed in
five volumes in 1865, was not given to the public until
1909, when his daughter, Lady Dorchester, taking the early

1 J. A. Pott's translation from Leonidas, in Greek Love Songs and
Epigrams, pp. 29-30 (first series).

AUTOBIOGRAPHY IN i 9 TH CENTURY 207

part of the five volumes as a basis, incorporated therewith
portions of diaries and published works. Mr. Hare, how
ever, completed his own design a design thus described
by himself: "My story is a very long one, and though
only, as Sir C. Bowen would have called it, * a ponderous
biography of nobody,' is told in great most people will
say in far too much detail. But to me it seems as if it were
in the petty details, not in the great results, that the real
interest of every existence lies. I think, also, though it may
be considered a strange thing to say, that the true picture
of a whole life at least an English life has never yet been
painted, and certainly all the truth of such a picture must
come from its delicate touches. Then, though most readers
of this story will only read parts of it, they are sure to be
different parts." l The minuteness and prolixity of Mr.
Hare's work may well be set over against the condensation
and brevity of David Hume's life story. English literature
thus contains admirable examples of both the brief and the
long autobiography.

The tendency of autobiography to merge into fiction
grew increasingly apparent during this century. We have
already noted John Gait's observation that " it might be
as easy to draw for the materials of a book on the memory
as upon the imagination " ; from the point of view of the
reader, he remarked that " a man must not forget, that
however important the incidents of his life may be to
himself, the general body of readers will regard his memoirs
but as a common book, and never trouble themselves, in
pursuit of pastime, to ascertain whether what they read
consists of fact or fiction." 2 This carelessness on the part of
readers as to the distinction between fact and fiction may
or may not be the reason for the increasing fictional element.

1 The Story of My Life, vol. i. Preface.

1 The Literary Life of John Gait, vol. i. p. 338.

208 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

Suffice it to say, the tendency is present and is recognised.
" The question of what is actual autobiography and what
is so coloured as to become practically fiction, must always
be a matter of opinion." l In no autobiographical docu
ments is the question more apparent than in George
Sorrow's Lavengro and The Romany Rye. Sorrow's bio
graphers agree that, in the main, the two works are auto
biographical; that it was Sorrow's original intention that
Lavengro especially should be so. 2 The difficulty is where
to draw the line. " ' What is autobiography ? ' Borrow once
asked Mr. Theodore Watts-Dunton (who had called his
attention to ' several bold coincidences in Lavengro '). 'Is
it the mere record of the incidents of a man's life ? or is it a
picture of the man himself his character, his soul ? ' " 3
The question is not yet settled.

After all these centuries we may well ask what form
English autobiography has attained. As a general fact,
we may say that it is, on the whole, much more full and
explicit than biography, with less of concealment. The
development of English prose style has influenced it
appreciably, though one cannot say that, on the whole,
since the days of Franklin, Gibbon, and Hume, the style of
autobiography has grown remarkably better. Whatever
gain there has been in organic structure is still blurred by
the fact that autobiography is fragmentary and governed
by the whims of the writer. On but one point is there

1 Herbert Jenkins, The Life of George Borrow, p. 396.

8 See Jenkins' Life of Borrow and William I. Knapp's Life,
Writings, and Correspondence of George Borrow, passim. "In 1851
appeared the first of two remarkable books, Lavengro and The
Romany Rye, in which George Borrow, if he did not exactly create,
brought to perfection from some points of view what may be called
the autobiographic novel." George Saintsbury, The English Novel,
pp. 255-6.

3 Quoted by Herbert Jenkins in Life of Borrow, p. 396, from
" Notes upon George Borrow " prefaced to an edition of Lavengro
issued by Ward, Lock & Co.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY IN 19- CENTURY 209

manifest agreement among autobiographers. " I must so
far follow the method of autobiographers as to begin with
a few notices of my birth," wrote Egerton Brydges. To
begin with the pedigree and in many instances to carry it
to inordinate length has become a general autobiographi
cal habit. Add to this habit the prominent element of
apology for since the beginning these self-biographers
have seemed to feel that they are called upon to justify
their work and the points of agreement are practically
exhausted. It is scarcely too much to say that every
autobiographer is a law unto himself.

We have but to read autobiographies to discover the
diversities of opinion existing among the writers them
selves as to just what material should be included. They
vary, in theory and in practice, from the statement ot
Egerton Brydges, that " it is not the business of a self-
memorialist merely to give the characters of others, which
he has had an opportunity of observing; to apply a mirror
to his own heart is his first business," l to that of Francis
Jeffrey: " Life has often been compared to a journey; and
the simile seems to hold better in nothing than in the
identity of the rules by which those who write their travels,
and those who write their lives, should be governed. When
a man returns from visiting any celebrated region, we
expect to hear much more of the remarkable things and
persons he has seen, than of his own personal transactions;
and are naturally disappointed if, after saying that he lived
much with illustrious statesmen or heroes, he chooses
rather to tell us of his own travelling equipage, or of his
cookery and servants, than to give us any account of the
character and conversation of those distinguished persons.

1 Autobiography, vol. i. p. 277. In vol. ii. p. 231, Mr. Brydges also
remarks that " if inward workings are not frankly disclosed, nothing
is done."

2io ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

In the same manner, when, at the close of a long life spent
in circles of literary and political celebrity, an author sits
down to give the world an account of his retrospections, it
is reasonable to stipulate that he shall talk less of himself
than of his associates." 1

Practically all autobiographers agree that truth should
be striven for. " A memoir-writer may delude himself,
but he must not falsify. If he does delude, the delusion
forms part of his character; and he must take the conse
quence." 2 Herbert Spencer, however, is of the conviction
that such truth can be only approximated : " At first sight
it seems possible for one who narrates his own life and
draws his own portrait to be quite truthful; but it proves
to be impossible. There are various media which distort
the things seen through them, and an autobiography is a
medium which produces some irremediable distortions." 3

There is a consensus of opinion, on the other hand, that
it is impossible for an autobiographer to conceal the manner
of man that he is. " It has frequently been said that an
autobiography must of necessity be an untrue representa
tion of its subject, as no man can judge himself correctly.
If it is intended to imply that somebody else, having a
much slighter acquaintance with the man whose life is to be
narrated, would produce a more truthful book, one may be
permitted to doubt the validity of the inference. Thousands
of facts are known to a man himself with reference to his
career, and a multitude of determinant motives, which are
not known even to his most intimate friends, still less to
the stranger who so often undertakes the biography. The
reader of an autobiography has this additional advantage,
that the writer must be unconsciously revealing himself

1 Edinburgh Review, April 1806; Contributions to the Edinburgh
Review, vol. iv. pp. 403-4, review of Memoirs of Richard Cumberland.
* Egerton Brydges, Autobiography, vol. ii. p. 121.
8 Autobiography, vol. ii. p. 28.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY IN 19 CENTURY 211

all along, merely by his way of telling things." l Leslie
Stephen voiced the same sentiment: " It may be reckoned
... as a special felicity that an autobiography, alone of
all books, may be more valuable in proportion to the
amount of misrepresentation which it contains. We do not
wonder when a man gives a false character to his neighbour,
but it is always curious to see how a man continues to
present a false testimonial to himself. It is pleasant to be
admitted behind the scenes and to trace the growth of that
singular phantom, which, like the Spectre of the Brocken,
is the man's own shadow cast upon the coloured and
distorted mists of memory." 2

An examination of English autobiography discloses the
fact so far, at least, as a reader may judge that the
writers of their own lives have been unusually frank and
full in their self-revelations. " It may be said," remarks
Egerton Brydges, " that almost all men wish to appear to
the whole world in a character which does not belong to
them, and that by their own pens they will most probably
portray themselves in that character. Experience proves
that this has not been the case with autobiographers ; and
that many things have been thus known and admitted to
be true, which would otherwise have died with the writers." 3
Perhaps this truthfulness has had something to do with
the fact that most autobiographies have been posthumously
published; the authors have no doubt shrunk from facing
the truth in cold print, in their own lifetime. " Many,"
says Mr. Brydges, " have written an autobiography; but
few have had the courage to let them appear during their
own lives." 4

All in all, the nineteenth century brought forth a notable

1 P. G. Hamerton, Autobiography, pp. i-2.
1 Hours in a Library, vol. iii. p. 237.
* Autobiography, vol. ii. p. 211.
4 Ibid. 414.

212 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

body of autobiography. All classes of English-speaking
people, from the highest to the lowest, have written their
stories " with their own hands." He who would understand
the genius of this people in its varied manifestations need
only turn to this branch of English literature. He will
meet a large and strangely assorted company, and may
leave it with the bewildered impression that one so often
feels in leaving such assemblies. Whether or not he carries
away from this company of autobiographers any impression
of definite, unified groups and it is very probable that he
will he will at least bear with him the feeling that he has
met the English-speaking world in little, that in the micro
cosm he has come to know the macrocosm.

PROBLEMS AND TENDENCIES 213
CHAPTER IX

PROBLEMS AND TENDENCIES OF THE PRESENT

ALONG with its rich contribution, the past has bequeathed
many problems. Some of these are persistent, and seem to
defy positive solution. After centuries of experimentation,
there emerges, for instance, no best order of arrangement.
What Isaac Watts wrote in 1725 in regard to methods of
procedure employed by biographers applies as truly to-day
as when it was first written: " So in writing the Lives of
men, which is called biography," the words are from the
Logic* " some authors follow the track of their years and
place everything in the precise order of time when it
occurred; others throw the temper and character of the
persons, their private life, their public stations, their
personal occurrences, their domestic conduct, their speeches,
their books or writings, their sickness and death, into so
many distinct chapters." By some writers of the eighteenth
century the problems were passed over lightly. " The
biographer and historian," we are quoting from the Rev.
Samuel Burdy, " have materials provided for them; their
business then is only to arrange with skill and express with
perspicuity." 2 The " only " so easily and casually inserted
by Mr. Burdy does not lessen the difficulties; biographers
still find that efforts to arrange with skill and to execute
with perspicuity require all the power and ability that can
be summoned.

Apart from these technical problems, perhaps the greatest
is to differentiate history from biography. This is a very

'Pp. 516-7.

1 Life of Philip Skelton (1792), p. 71, of the Oxford University
Press edition, in which the work is now easily accessible.

214 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

old problem, arising out of the fact that biography was
for so long considered merely a branch of history.
From the days of George Cavendish, most biographers
have had occasion to refer to their difficulties in dealing
with this problem. " Many writers have divided the
reign of a prince from his life, and so have given the
actions without the man ; the political occurrences without
the genius that gave a rise and a turn to them." In these
words the line of demarcation is clearly drawn; the danger
of failure resulting from such division is as clearly suggested.
A solution seems necessary, and to the writer in question
the solution lay along the path of compromise: " It shall be
the present design to write the life as well as the reign of
this unfortunate prince [Charles I.], and give all the true
characters of his person along with a relation of all the
affairs of his government." * Attempts to arrive at a better
or a different solution have been many.

The theoretical elements of the problem have been well
stated by the Rev. Edward Edwards. Mr. Edwards was
not alone a theorist, however; in his Life of Sir Walter
Raleigh he was face to face with the difficulties which he
sets forth. 2 He was, in addition, a careful and enthusiastic
student of biography in general. We quote his statements
at length :

" Part of the enduring charm of biographical literature seems to be
close akin to the charms of dramatic art. And that resemblance
might, perhaps, be made the basis of a somewhat more sharply

1 Rennet's History of England, Anonymous Life and Reign of
Charles I.

* Students of biography will be interested in this Life of Raleigh.
In it, Mr. Edwards made the attempt to refrain from the delineation
of " great national transactions . . . even by way of giving an
historical background to his own humble theme." He also printed
Raleigh's letters in a volume separate from the Life. Thus, remarks
the author, " readers will find in it a two-fold departure from
methods which, of late years, have become very common in English
biography." The work was published in 1868,

PROBLEMS AND TENDENCIES 215

defined distinction between the proper province of ' biography ' and
that of ' history,' than is given in the current definitions. It has
been said that ' biography ' is the life of a man ; ' history ' the life
of a nation. There is truth, as well as point, in the saying. But
plainly, the definition does not carry all the truth. A good biography
has a dramatic interest (though not a dramatic completeness) about
it, to which the best history of a nation can never attain. In the
well-told story of any energetic and individual life there is always an
undercurrent of tragedy, so to speak. We cannot feel for the fortunes
of a crowd of men, as we feel for the fortunes of one particular man.
Very few, perhaps, of those that read attentively the story of a
really memorable life, are insensible to the temptation, as they reach
the closing pages, of turning back again to the opening pages.
Whether or not the writer may have tried to ' sum up ' the life he
has been narrating, most thoughtful readers feel constrained to
make a summary and an estimate of their own. They are led to
compare the early promise with the late performance; the long
toils of the seed-time with the hurried joys of harvest. They strive
to realise, within their own minds, some of those many personal
retrospections which they are sure must have given colour bright
or sombre to the last days, and to the latest thoughts, of the man
they have been reading about. Such readers get to feel, as with the
vividness of personal experience, that the most successful and best-
rounded life is always incomplete, and almost always, in a measure,
tragic. They see that the man who has been, in appearance, most
thoroughly enabled by an Almighty Overruler, to do with his life
what, in his youthful and best moments, he planned to do with it,
has yet fallen far short of his aspirations; and that his life is frag
mentary. They ask themselves, ' Is this, in truth, the end ? ' ' Is it
not, rather, a beginning ? ' Such questions as these do not so readily
arise in our minds as we read of the revolutions of empires, or the
vicissitudes of nations. . . .

" We commonly speak, indeed, of the ' national mind ' the
' national responsibilities ' the ' national life.' And there is neither
vagueness nor strain in such language. A people has continuity of
spirit beneath change of form, not less truly though diversely
than has a nation. The historian who fails to bring out the collective
life of a nation, as well as its outward story, misses his function as
certainly as does the biographer who tells the sayings and doings of
his subject from cradle to grave, but tells them in a way that throws V/
no ray of light on the growth of his intellect, or the life of his soul.
With spiritual life (in the truest sense of the term) the historian is
not concerned. The collective life of a nation has its boundaries and

216 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

its term. That national life has very far-reaching issues. But they
are all finite. . . .

" When one man has for a time almost embodied the collective life
of a nation, how ought the mere biographer to deal or attempt to
deal with the individual and personal career of the man as dis
tinguished from the career of the monarch or temporary leader of a
people ? Does such a man belong to biography at all ? . . .

" In the most ordinary lives if they be worth telling at all the
biographer has a two-columned story to tell, or to interweave. There
is the column of outward incidents, and also the column of that
intellectual and spiritual growth which is being continually evolved
beneath them. Must the biographer in these exceptional cases [such
as those of Napoleon and Frederick the Great] attempt to fill three
columns in parallel fulness the third of them being hardly less than
the story of a nation? The biographer who should attempt that
would as surely destroy the proper unity of his work as such an unity
has been, many times, destroyed by some painters of battle-pieces.
The too-ambitious artist has occasionally striven to depict a battle
by exhibiting upon his canvas the muster-rolls of two armies. The
result has been a vast crowd of figures which only depict ' a battle '
in the unfortunate sense that they are mutually destructive. The
prudent biographer will, perhaps, be inclined to solve the difficulty
by handing over much of his second column, and nearly all of the
third, to the historian whenever he has to deal with the Napoleons
and the Fredericks. To chronicle the doings of men of that class is
the historian's province. To make some roughly effective summary
of these doings, in the way of epitome or extract, will be all that can
fairly come within the province of biography. The real biographer
cannot, indeed, conceive of a Napoleon whose inmost mental and
spiritual history has not been shaped by that wonderful life-itinerary
which began at Ajaccio to end at Longwood. He cannot sever, even
in thought, the plastic working of the studious days at Auxonne, or
of the conversations at Beaucaire, from that of the exultant moments
of Austerlitz, or the bitter hours of Waterloo. But he will not, on
that account, incur the danger of becoming a mere annalist in a
vain attempt to unite two several functions, each of which is arduous
enough to put a strain on mental power at its best." l

1 In A Handbook to the Literature of General Biography, pp. 1 3-22.
This work, by the Rev. Edward Edwards in collaboration with the
Rev. Charles Hole, was projected in eight parts, of which only the
first, " General Biography extending over all Ages," was printed,
in pamphlet form, at Ventnor, Isle of Wight, 1885. The edition
consisted of only 250 copies. The most interesting and illuminative
paragraphs are reprinted in the present work.

PROBLEMS AND TENDENCIES 217

In the light of the quotations just given it is well to
consider the actual practice of a number of biographers
who have found themselves confronted by this problem
in its strongest aspects. Few modern biographers have
shirked the difficulty; most have attempted a solution.
" To enter the domain of history by the pathway of bio
graphy," observes Sir Henry Craik, " is a task beset with
peculiar doubts and difficulties. How far is it permissible
to stray from the narrow pathway we have chosen, and
expatiate upon aspects of the time, which do not fall within
the personal experience of him whose life we attempt to
portray ? If we restrict ourselves too much, we move blind
folded along an obscure track; if we range too freely, we
lose the identity of the single stream we seek to follow
amidst a multitude of devious channels. In writing a
biography above all, in writing the biography of one
who has played a large part in the leading transactions of
his time we must build up for ourselves a structure of
general history; and having done so, we must then knock
ruthlessly away, like temporary scaffolding, all that is not
essential to the personal figure which we attempt to
present. ... I am aware that, by some, the biographical
aspects of history may be esteemed as but a subsidiary
matter, falling beneath the dignity of its more severe
domain, and of its larger theories, and foreign to what, in
modern jargon, is called the science of history. But in the
general, and not unsound, judgment of mankind, these
aspects can never lose their permanent interest." *

" In what we are to say," writes Walter Sichel at the
beginning of his Bolingbroke and bis Times, " we shall try
to avoid the error which mistakes a sequence of dates for
an intelligence of energies the style which is a mere
nuntia vftustatis, as well as that second-hand repetition of
1 The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon, Preface.

2i 8 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

prejudice which, in Bolingbroke's own words, ' converts
history into authorised romance.' Character even more
than achievement will be our study. To interpret events by
character and not character by events, is the true historical
method. For, indeed, the peruser of chronicles is too often
reminded of an auction in some ancient manor. The garni
ture is dispersed in order and catalogued for sale. The
inventories are tritely truthful and superficially solid. But
the mainspring of memories, the intimacies of association
are wanting; the ghosts that haunt the whispering corridors
are invisible and neglected. It is a sale of dead lumber." 1
To no one, perhaps, was the problem presented in more
serious form than to John Morley. " Every reader will
perceive," such are Mr. Morley's words, " that perhaps the
sharpest of all the many difficulties of my task has been
to draw the line between history and biography between
the fortunes of the community and the exploits, thoughts,
and purposes of the individual who had so marked a share
in them. In the case of men of letters, in whose lives our
literature is admirably rich, this difficulty happily for
their authors and for our delight does not arise. But where
the subject is a man who was four times at the head of the
government no phantom, but dictator and who held this
office of first minister for a longer time than any other
statesman in the reign of the Queen, how can we tell the
story of his works and days without reference, and ample
reference, to the course of events over whose unrolling he
presided, and out of which he made history ? . . . Assuredly
I am not presumptuous enough to suppose that this diffi
culty of fixing the precise scale between history and bio
graphy has been successfully overcome by me. It may be
that Hercules himself would have succeeded little better." 2

1 Vol. i. p. 10.

a The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, vol. i. pp. 1-2.

PROBLEMS AND TENDENCIES 219

" For a thing so commonly attempted," the words are
from the Preface of Winston Spencer Churchill's Lord
Randolph Churchill, " political biography is difficult. The
style and ideas of the writer must throughout be subor
dinated to the necessity of embracing in the text those
documentary proofs upon which the story depends. Letters,
memoranda, and extracts from speeches, which inevitably
and rightly interrupt the sequence of his narrative, must
be pieced together upon some consistent and harmonious
plan. It is not by the soft touches of a picture, but in
hard mosaic or tessellated pavement, that a man's life
and fortunes must be presented in all their reality and
romance. I have thought it my duty, so far as possible, to
assemble once and for all the whole body of historical
evidence required for the understanding of Lord Randolph
Churchill's career."

Arthur Christopher Benson had before him a difficult
problem in ecclesiastical history in writing the life of his
father, Edward White Benson, Archbishop of Canterbury.
" There appeared no choice," says Mr. Benson in the
Preface, " between slowly and gradually evolving an
elaborate work, which should be a minute contribution to
the ecclesiastical history of the time and for that my
professional life as well as my own capacity afforded me
little opportunity and sketching in broad outlines and
rapid strokes, with as much living detail as possible, a
biographical portrait. ... It seemed better to attempt
to draw as careful a picture of my father's life and character
as possible, and to touch on events through the medium
of personality rather than reveal personality through
events. . . ."

In concluding a discussion of this problem we may bear
in mind the opinions of two modern writers qualified to
speak as well by study of the subject as by actual practice

220 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

in writing biography. " Broad views," in the opinion of
Edmund Gosse, " are entirely out of place in biography,
and there is no greater literary mistake than to attempt
what is called the ' Life and Times ' of a man. . . . History
deals with fragments of the vast roll of events; it must
always begin abruptly and close in the middle of affairs;
it must always deal, impartially, with a vast number of
persons. Biography is a study sharply defined by two
definite events, birth and death. It fills its canvas with one
figure, and other characters, however great in themselves,
must always be subsidiary to the central hero." l Leslie
Stephen offers a solution: " The provinces of the historian
and the biographer are curiously distinct, although they are
closely related. History is of course related to biography
inasmuch as most events are connected with some particu
lar person. . . . And, on the other hand, every individual
life is to some extent an indication of the historical condi
tions of the time. . . . And yet, the curious thing is the
degree in which this fact can be ignored on both sides. If
we look at any of the ordinary collections of biographical
material, we shall constantly be struck by the writer's
unconsciousness of the most obvious inferences. . . . Thus,
I have sometimes noticed that a man may be in one sense a
most accomplished biographer; that is, he can tell you off
hand a vast number of facts, genealogical, official, and so
forth, and yet has never, as we say, put two and two together.
I have read lives giving minute details about the careers of
authors, which yet prove unmistakably that the writers
had no general knowledge of the literature of the period.
A man will know every fact about all the people mentioned,
say, in Boswell, and yet have no conception of the general
position of Johnson, or Burke, or Goldsmith in English
literature. . . . Now the first office of the biographer is to
1 Encyclopedia Bntannica, article " Biography.'

PROBLEMS AND TENDENCIES 221

facilitate what I may call the proper reaction between
biography and history; to make each study throw all
possible light on the other; and so to give fresh vitality
to two different lines of study, which, though their mutual
dependence is obvious, can yet be divorced so effectually
by the mere Dryasdust." l The problem, however, yet
remains; in the practical solution of it, biographers of the
present and the future will find full scope for their energies,
and the manner of its solution will no doubt constitute the
chief contribution yet to be made to the development of
biography.

It would seem that biographers, in the toils of such
material as they are frequently called upon to struggle
with, are not free to work as they choose. We witness
their painful endeavours; we listen to their complaints;
we accept their apologies. In the face of such struggles,
such complaints, such apologies, we come to feel that there
must be such a thing as pure biography, and that it is for
the attainment of this that every true biographer is panting.
Trevelyan telling us that in the Life ofMacaulay he touches
politics only " in order to show to what extent Macaulay
was a politician, and for how long," or avoiding criticism
of Macaulay's literary labours in the expressed belief that
" it is not the province of biography to dilate upon works
which are already before the world " ; Morley openly
passing over " the detailed history of Mr. Gladstone as
theologian and churchman " ; Edmund Gosse discussing
the scientific labours of his father, Philip Henry Gosse,
only in so far as they throw light upon the personality of
the man; Benson explaining that he will not attempt to
write the full story of his father's ecclesiastical career;
Robert S. Rait affirming, " If I have written a defence of
the General whose life I have attempted to tell, it is
1 Studies of a Biographer, vol. i. pp. 12-15.

222 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

because my materials made such a defence the only
possible form that a biography of Lord Gough could take "
in these typical examples we have ample testimony to
the feeling of limitation the hampering influence of a
difficulty hard to surmount. All would evidently like to
avoid the problems involved and write only of the man.
Perhaps to do so is not entirely possible. In the case of
literary men there would seem to be most possibility of
attaining to pure biography.

The problem of dealing with genealogical details con
fronts the biographer of the present. Since the publication
of Oldys' Life of Raleigh, there has been a growing tendency
to go into ancestral details, a tendency that has been
greatly strengthened by the elaborate research methods
so characteristic of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
There is arising in the minds of many the question whether
such long and detailed treatment of genealogy is necessary
for biography. Boswell gets along very well without intro
ducing much of ancestral record in the Life of Johnson ; it
is a question whether Lockhart's Life of Scott is the better
for the length of such record. " The interest in our ances
tors," comments Andrew Lang, " ' without whose life we
had not been,' may be regarded as a foible, and was made
matter of reproach, both to Scott and his biographer. . . .
Scott was anxious to realise his own ancestry to his imagina
tion; . . . whatever he had in himseK he would fain have
made out a hereditary claim for. In this taste there is not
wanting a domestic piety; and science, since Sir Walter's
day, has approved of his theory, that the past of our race
revives in each of us." l We must take into consideration,
also, the statement of Carlyle that " the history of a man's
childhood is the description of his parents and environ
ment." 2 In the face of all this, however, there is evidence

1 Life and Letters of Lockhart, vol. i. pp. 1-2. * Life of Sterling.

PROBLEMS AND TENDENCIES 223

that many will follow Froude's biographer: " In reading
biographies," admits Mr. Paul, " I always skip the genea
logical details. To be born obscure and to die famous has
been described as the acme of human felicity. However
that may be, whether fame has anything to do with happi
ness or no, it is a man himself, and not his ancestors, whose
life deserves, if it does deserve, to be written. Such was
Froude's own opinion, and it is the opinion of most sensible
people." l From the point of view of science, the details of
a man's ancestry may be highly valuable, and for such
purpose may be duly set forth in a scientific work. On the
other hand, there is not much doubt that hereafter the
canon of unity will rule out of biography proper the most
of genealogical detail. We may look, in the future, to see
all save the strictly relevant genealogical details relegated
to an appendix.

Ever since the value of correspondence became evident
to biographers, letters have been made use of freely. The
problem of the proper method of adapting correspondence
to the uses of biography yet confronts writers ; it has been
given careful consideration, and there is a growing convic
tion that instead of lessening the difficulties of a biographer,
a vast quantity of correspondence only increases them :

** To correspondence, biography is so much indebted that its
subtraction would devastate that section of our libraries. Many a
huge and precious volume would shrivel into the mere husk of what
it was, if deprived of the letters which gave it both substance and
vitality. But none the less is it true that the best letters that were
ever written in fullest series, are a wretched substitute for a real
biography. A correspondence worth preserving should be preserved
apart. What the true biographer has to do with it is to use it. The
more he can extract of its purport; the more he can absorb of its
spirit; the better will be his book. The more he thrusts it in bodily
how admirable so ever in itself the more will his book be a thing
of shreds and patches. To depict worthily and enduringly any

1 Life of Froude, p. i.

224 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

human life really deserving to be depicted, is a task which was never
yet achieved without a strain on all the faculty the writer could
upgather for the occasion. That fact should suffice, one imagines,
to convince a man that letter-copying can go but a little way. Any
penman can transcribe letters or without even inking his fingers
can put them together, scissors-and-paste fashion, much quicker
than any printer can put them into type." l

William Winter remarks that " the unjustifiable use of
private letters, as an element in the biography of deceased
persons, has been severely and rightly condemned." He
then tells us that " a judicious and correct use of such
documents, however, can neither do injustice to the dead
nor give offence to the living." 2 He thus leaves the prob
lem where he found it. Every biographer must, in the end,
arrive at his own solution of just what constitutes " a
judicious and correct use " of private letters.

The problem of length is one which biographers of the
present and the future must face unflinchingly. It is not a
new problem: it has been before the public since the days
of Boswell's Johnson and Lockhart's Scott. It is, however,
more vital than ever before: in this day of details, when
every possible scrap of information in regard to a man's
life is fondly treasured, when significant are in danger of
being buried beneath insignificant facts, we may well take
pause. " Most modern biographies are too large," the
words are those of the Rev. Thomas Davidson " they err
by not selecting merely the significant." 3 In this connexion
we may well bear in mind, also, another of Mr. Davidson's
thoughtful statements: " If, as has been said, every man's
life is worth telling for something that there was in it of
unique interest, it may be equally true that all the life save
this particular part was not worth telling at all, and had

1 Edwards and Hole, A Handbook to the Literature of General
Biography, pp. 24-5.
9 Old Friends, p. 206.
3 Chambers'* Encyclopedia, article " Biography."

PROBLEMS AND TENDENCIES 225

better been left untold." l Leslie Stephen deprecated the
increasing length of biographies in no uncertain terms:
" Lives are really becoming overpowering. Old Pusey
the smallest of human beings has, I think, four monstrous
volumes, discussing baptismal regeneration and the like.
It makes one ashamed of the intellect of the race. . . .
There are two volumes about Dean Stanley, principally
to show that he acted as personal conductor to the Prince
of Wales." 2 A realisation of the full import of the problem
and a proper application of well-merited ridicule may have
the effect of bringing the biographies of the future within
reasonable compass.

Herbert Spencer has called attention to a defect neces
sarily arising out of omission for purposes of compression:
" A biographer or autobiographer is obliged to omit from
his narrative the commonplaces of daily life, and to limit
himself almost exclusively to salient events, action, and
traits. The writing and the reading of the bulky volumes
otherwise required would be alike impossible. But by
leaving out the humdrum part of life, forming that im
mensely larger part which it had in common with other
lives, and by setting forth only the striking things, he pro
duces the impression that it differed from other lives more
than it really did. This defect is inevitable." 3 It is true
that in great degree a biographer " is obliged to omit Irom
his narrative the commonplaces of daily life " for the
simple reason that biography is an art and it is likewise
true that the defect to which Mr. Spencer calls attention
is less noticeable in the works of those biographers who
possess the highest artistic ability.

Turning from problems to tendencies, we may remark

1 Chambers' s Encyclopedia, article "Biography."
In letter (Dec. 23, 1904) to Charles Eliot Norton, quoted in
Maitland's Life of Stephen, p. 420.
s Autobiography, vol. ii. pp. 326-7.

P

226 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

first that there is no decline in the amount of biography
that is being written and published; rather, it seems to be
on the increase. Life-narrative is still dividing attention
well with fiction. It is pleasing to note that " a good bio
graphy has a chance amid the welter of war." x With the
good, there are, of course, great numbers of worthless
biographies published. We must simply submit to the
output, and, as in the past, allow the worthless ones to
disappear. We may, perhaps, and rightly find fault with
those biographers who profess merely " to submit materials
for others to work up " professions which amount to
confessions of biographical incompetence. These incom
petents, however, may also be performing a service, and on
their failures more skilful writers may erect successes.

Lives of the type of Johnson's Savage and Carlyle's
Sterling seem to be increasing in number, although in
quality few can approach these great models. Although
Ruskin probably went too far in saying that " Lives in
which the public are interested are scarcely ever worth
writing," there is no evidence that Carlyle's statement
that " a true delineation of the smallest man, and his scene
of pilgrimage through life, is capable of interesting the
greatest man," is in any sense exaggerated. It may not be
true that the life of a comparatively insignificant, unknown
person is of value only when told and interpreted by a
writer of the deepest insight and greatest artistic ability;
yet so much depends, in such a case, upon the interpreta
tion that successful biographies of this type are likely to
remain the scarcest in the language. Few, indeed, since
Carlyle's Sterling have risen to the height of Charles
William Eliot's brief sketch, John Gilley, Maine Farmer
and Fisherman.

1 In article " War and Books," by James Milne, literary editor
of The Daily Chronicle, July 27, 191 5.

PROBLEMS AND TENDENCIES 227

Redivival biography continues to flourish. No pains are
being spared to reproduce from the dusty records of the
past some semblance of a man. In certain instances such
biographies are clearly fulfilling a purpose, as, for example,
in the case of Laurence Sterne, who waited almost a century
for a biographer. The success of such attempts can be but
approximate; it is not possible for such biographies to
attain to anything like the truth and fidelity of those
written by contemporaries. " Some have affected to write
the lives of persons long since dead and gone, and their
names preserved only by some formal remains, and (ever)
dubious traditions," wrote Roger North near the middle
of the eighteenth century. " So," he continues, " painters
copy from obscure draughts half obliterated, whereof no
member, much less the entire resemblance, is to be found.
But fiction, supported upon seeming probability, must
fill up the blanks and supply all defects. In this manner
some lives have become redivival, but with partial views,
tending either to panegyric, the advance of some favourite
opinions, or factious intrigues; which are fiercely pursued,
while the life-scraps come out very thin and meagre. And,
after great length of time, how should it come off better ? " 1
Yet not for this reason should we dismiss earnest attempts
to produce such narratives, or deny ourselves such informa
tion and pleasure as they may give us. There is always a
place for such a scholarly effort as that recently made by
Professor Charles Mills Gayley, to fashion for us from most
difficult materials some semblance of the personality of
Francis Beaumont. 2 One could scarcely set before oneself a
more difficult biographical task than to distinguish clearly be
tween Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher to eliminate
the " and " which has so long united the " heavenly twins."

1 Lives of the Norths, vol. iii. pp. 273-4.
* In his Beaumont the Dramatist.

28 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

The shadowy border -land between biography and
fiction was never more clearly evident than it is at the
present. In autobiography, especially, is there danger of
wandering too far from actual fact. The danger is, perhaps,
unavoidable : for most of us the past is the land of romance,
and from our experience in that golden realm all unpleasant
ness has disappeared, or has been, at least, softened. It is
difficult to write of past experiences from the point of view
of the past. Such novels as David Copperfield and the Mill
on the Floss are full of personal reminiscences, and go to
show how easy it is for autobiography to be turned in the
direction of fiction. In his recent book, Father and Son,
which was crowned in 1913 by the French Academy,
Edmund Gosse remarks that " at the present hour, when
fiction takes forms so ingenious and so specious, it is
perhaps necessary to say that the . . . narrative, in all its
parts, and so far as the punctilious attention of the writer
has been able to keep it so, is scrupulously true." The
volume has much of the charm and much of the method of
fiction; it was put forth anonymously, and with the names
of persons altered. The narrative constitutes a biography
of the father (Philip Henry Gosse) and an autobiography
of the son (Edmund) from birth to his twenty-first year.
Thus, however careful Mr. Gosse has been to write what
is " scrupulously true," the reader feels that over the entire
narrative there hangs a veil the blue haze of the past
and that between the story of Father and Son and fiction
that is fashioned out of fact, there lies but a step. The
book is wrought out of such stuff " as dreams are made on."
In William Henry Venable's A Buckeye Boyhood, America
has produced a somewhat similar veiled autobiography,
which, though perhaps following Mr. Gosse's work at a
distance, is yet worthy to be named with it. Read in
connexion with such matter-of-fact works as the auto-

PROBLEMS AND TENDENCIES 229

biographies of Franklin, Hume, and Gibbon, the tendency
illustrated by such books as these of Mr. Gosse and
Mr. Venable will stand forth clearly.

Mr. Gosse, in the Preface to Father and Son, says that
the book " is offered ... as a record of educational and
religious conditions which, having passed away, will never
return. In this respect, as the diagnosis of a dying Puritan
ism, it is hoped that the narrative will not be altogether
without significance." One cannot help wondering, after
reading these words, whether Mr. Gosse, during the period
of writing his narrative, ever thought of a certain New
England novel; for long before, in his Doctor Johns:
Being a Narrative of Certain Events in the Life of an Orthodox
Minister of Connecticut, Donald Grant Mitchell also diag
nosed phases of " a dying Puritanism." There are many
points of likeness between honest, fervid Doctor Johns and
Philip Henry Gosse; young Reuben Johns chafed under
his father's restraints as bitterly as ever Edmund Gosse did.
Both books show the results somewhat different to be
sure of an unyielding, but mistaken religious educational
regime. Although it professes to be simply fiction Mr.
Mitchell's novel is full of autobiographical touches. These
two works should be read in conjunction by those who
wish to study the manner in which fact and fiction blend
in autobiography the manner in which fact readily and
easily shades into pure fiction. The one book is the comple
ment of the other.

The long-growing tendency to avoid panegyric has been
steadily strengthened and confirmed; we no longer demand
idealised biography. We have grown very far away from
the opinions expressed by William Wordsworth in 1816,
in his letter to James Gray concerning biographies of Robert
Burns. Wordsworth would have us shrink from the truth;
he would have us shield the life of authors from close

230 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

inspection; he would have us accept the works as apart
from the workers :

" Your feelings, I trust," writes Wordsworth to Gray, " go along
with mine; and rising from this individual case [Robert Burns] to
a general view of the subject, you will probably agree with me in
opinion that biography, though differing in some essentials from
works of fiction, is nevertheless, like them, an art an art, the laws
of which are determined by the imperfections of our nature, and the
constitution of society. Truth is not here, as in the sciences, and in
natural philosophy, to be sought without scruple, and promulgated
for its own sake, upon the mere chance of its being serviceable ; but
only for obviously justifying purposes, moral or intellectual.

" Silence is a privilege of the grave, a right of the departed: let
him, therefore, who infringes that right, by speaking publicly of,
for, or against, those who cannot speak for themselves, take heed
that he opens not his mouth without a sufficient sanction. De
mortuis nil nisi bonum, is a rule in which these sentiments have been
pushed to an extreme that proves how deeply humanity is interested
in maintaining them. . . .

" The general obligation upon which I have insisted, is especially
binding upon those who undertake the biography of authors. As
suredly, there is no cause why the lives of that class of men should
be pried into with the same diligent curiosity, and laid open with
the same disregard of reserve, which may sometimes be expedient
in composing the history of men who have borne an active part in
the world. Such thorough knowledge of the good and bad qualities
of these latter, as can only be obtained by a scrutiny of their private
lives, conduces to explain not only their public conduct, but that
of those with whom they have acted. Nothing of this applies to
authors, considered merely as authors. Our business is with their
books to understand and to enjoy them. And, of poets more
especially, it is true that, if their works be good, they contain
within themselves all that is necessary to their being comprehended
and relished. It should seem that the ancients thought in this
manner; for of the eminent Greek and Roman poets, few and
scanty memorials were, I believe, ever prepared ; and fewer still are
preserved. It is delightful to read what, in the happy exercise of
his own genius, Horace chooses to communicate of himself and his
friends; but I confess I am not so much a lover of knowledge,
independent of its quality, as to make it likely that it would much
rejoice me, were I to hear that records of the Sabine poet and
his contemporaries, composed upon the Boswellian plan, had been

PROBLEMS AND TENDENCIES 231

unearthed among the ruins of Herculaneura. You will interpret
what I am writing, liberally. With respect to the light which such
a discovery might throw upon Roman manners, there would be
reasons to desire it: but I should dread to disfigure the beautiful
ideal of the memories of those illustrious persons with incongruous
features, and to sully the imaginative purity of their classical works
with gross and trivial recollections. The least weighty objection to
heterogeneous details, is that they are mainly superfluous, and
therefore an incumbrance.

" But you will perhaps accuse me of refining too much; and it is,
I own, comparatively of little importance, while we are engaged in
reading the Iliad, the Eneid, the tragedies of Othello and King Lear,
whether the authors of those poems were good or bad men; whether
they lived happily or miserably." l

While we are simply engaged in reading great works it
may, indeed, be a matter of " comparatively little import
ance whether the authors were good or bad men; whether
they lived happily or miserably "; but when we turn to a
consideration of an author's life in other words, when we
turn to the biography of an author it is a matter of
importance that we have the truth. Biography, in short,
has come to be regarded as " a truthful picture of life, of
life's tangled skein, good and ill together. Biography
prejudices its chances of success when it is consciously
designed as an ethical guide of life." 2 While there is a
present-day demand for truth, there is at the same time
no demand that the faults of a man's life should be exag
gerated : a due sense of proportion is all that is asked for. 1
Wordsworth speaks of the " poetic character which Burns
reared on the basis of his actual character," and would
have us consider this " airy fabric " alone, forgetting that
branch cannot be separated from root. Wordsworth's

1 Prose Works of Wordsworth, Edited by William Knight, vol. ii.
pp. 259-77.

Lee, Principles of Biography, p. 20.

1 As a statement of one point of view, Mrs. Oliphant's article on
" The Ethics of Biography," in the Contemporary Review, July 1883.
is interesting.

232 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

method, followed to its logical conclusion, would soon
result in myth; in fact he seemed to prefer that details
of a poet's life should recede more and more into the
mythical past.

" Now, there's Abraham Lincoln," remarked Walt
Whitman one day to Horace Traubel, and his words may
well be set down in contrast to those of Wordsworth
" Now, there's Abraham Lincoln : people get to know his
traits, his habits of life, some of his characteristics set off
in the most positive relief; soon all sorts of stories are
fathered on him some of them true, some of them apo
cryphal volumes of stories (stories decent and indecent)
fathered on him: legitimate stories, illegitimate: and so
Lincoln comes to us more or less falsified. Yet I know that
the hero is after all greater than any idealisation. Un
doubtedly just as the man is greater than his portrait
the landscape than the picture of it the fact than
anything we can know about the fact. While I accept the
records I think we know very little of the actual. I often
reflect, how very different every fellow must have been
from the fellow we come upon in the myths with the
surroundings, the incidents, the push and pull of the
concrete moment, all left out or wrongly set forth. It is
hard to extract a man's real self any man from such a
chaotic mass from such historic debris." l Later on,
Traubel records : " W. said to me to-night again as he has
before: * Some day you will be writing about me: be sure
to write about me honest : whatever you do do not prettify
me: include all the hells and damns.' Adding: ' I have
hated so much of the biography in literature because it is
so untrue : look at our national figures how they are spoiled
by liars: by the people who think they can improve on
God Almighty's work who put on an extra touch here,
1 With Walt Whitman in Camden, vol. i. p. 108.

PROBLEMS AND TENDENCIES 233

there, here again, there again, until the real man is no
longer recognisable." l We may safely conclude that the
tendency of the present is towards the truth; that here
after men's faults will be set forth in proper proportion.
In America, the TV ue Series of biographies bears testimony
to an honest if not always successful endeavour to write
biography that is not deformed panegyric or refined myth.
The Boswell-autobiographical method has become firmly
established. Its persistence in all great biography of the
present is evidence that it will dominate the future. It is
worth while to record that one of the most recent (1915)
biographies, The Life and Work of Edward Rowland Sill,
achieves a successful delineation of its subject, perhaps
because its author, William Belmont Parker, abandoned his
original design although he had half completed his task
and, acting upon a hint expressed in Leslie Stephen's
essay on Autobiography, turned back to make the book, so
far as possible, an autobiography of Sill. Modern bio
graphies differ, of course, very much from BoswelPs model;
almost all of them, as is well-nigh inevitable, contain far
less of conversation. The present has produced, however,
one work that approaches Boswell's. Mr. Horace Traubel
has thus far given in his With Walt Whitman in Camden a
minute record of Whitman's life from March 28, 1888, until
January 20, 1889. The 1614 pages of this three-volume
record contain an amount of conversation equalling, if not
surpassing, that of Johnson's gathered by Boswell. Mr.
Traubel has not, unfortunately, written a biography of
Whitman, he has merely published the record which he
made day by day. " I do not want to re-shape those years,"
he writes. " I want them left as they were. I keep them
forever contemporary. I trust in the spontaneity of first
impressions. ... So I have let Whitman alone. I have
1 With Walt Whitman in Camden, vol. i. p. 398.

234 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

let him remain the chief figure in his own story. ... I do
not come to conclusions. I provide that which may lead to
conclusions. I provoke conclusions." l Thus it is that
Mr. Traubel has preferred to remain a recorder rather than
attempted to become a biographer.

Although problems are being faced and solutions
attempted, although certain tendencies stand forth clearly,
it remains true that the end of the experimental stage has
not yet been reached. " The mode of treatment, especially
in modern times, is far from uniform. In some cases bio
graphy approaches the sphere of philosophy; in others,
that of history; while in the majority it assumes, to a large
extent, the character of analytic or descriptive criticism.
To none of these modes, theoretically considered, can there
be any valid objection; everything depends on the
judiciousness of the biographer." 2 While the methods may
not be uniform, the aim of biography has become fixed and
definite. " The aim of biography is, in general terms, to
hand down to a future age the history of individual men
and women, to transmit enduringly their character and
exploits. Character and exploits are for biographical pur
poses inseparable. Character which does not translate
itself into exploit is for the biographer a mere phantasm.
The exploit may range from mere talk, as in the case of
Johnson, to empire-building and military conquest, as in
the case of Julius Caesar or Napoleon. But character and
exploit jointly constitute biographic personality. Biography
aims at satisfying the commemorative instinct by exercise
of its power to transmit personality." * There is practical
unanimity of belief that the biographer " must keep per
petually in view . . . the personality and characteristics
of his subject. If these are buried under a load of digressive

1 In his foreword, " To Readers."

* New International Encyclopedia, article " Biography."

3 Lee, Principles of Biography, pp. 8-9.

PROBLEMS AND TENDENCIES 235

dissertations, his book, however valuable or interesting,
ceases to be a biography except in name." l

We have no reason to deplore either the course of the
best modern biography, or the tendencies of the first
quarter of the twentieth century. Already we may point
with pride to such works as Allen's Life of Phillips Brooks,
Morley's Life of Gladstone, Palmer's Alice Freeman Palmer,
and Cook's Life of Ruskin. The very length of three of
these biographies impresses upon us, however, the necessity
of emphasising the admonition of Sir Sidney Lee : " More
than ever at the present day is there imperative need
of winnowing biographic information, of dismissing the
voluminous chaff while conserving the grain. . . . The
biographer's labours will hereafter be immensely increased ;
but they will be labours lost, unless principles of discrimina
tion be rigorously applied." 2

1 New International Encyclopedia, article " Biography."
* Principles of Biography, pp. 41-2.

236 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

CHAPTER X

A COMPARATIVE VIEW

To give anything like an adequate account of comparative
biography would require a large volume, if, indeed, the
subject could be compassed within that limit. It is no part
of the task we have in hand to attempt such an ambitious
survey; but we may, with profit to ourselves, review
briefly the world contribution before the rise of the form in
the British Islands; trace the chief influences which have
affected English biographers ; and glance sufficiently at the
work accomplished by the leading modern nations to enable
us to estimate the progress made by English biography,
and thus form some opinion of its comparative rank. The
value of the work accomplished by English authors in this
department of literature will, as a result, become more
clearly evident.

Adamnan's Life of St. Columba is the first authentic
manifestation of the biographical impulse in Britain. Its
approximate date is 690 A.D. The work of the ninth Abbot
of lona was preceded by a large body of biographical com
position, written principally by Greeks and Romans. The
Hebrews, indeed, produced a great deal that may be classed
as biography, but the Old Testament narratives are only
incidentally, not deliberately, biographical. The four
Gospels constitute biographies of Jesus Christ, and much
of the remainder of the New Testament, if not intentionally
so, is yet autobiographical in method. If we cared to press
the matter still farther back, we might add, what has often
been remarked, that all ancient mythologies are but lives of

A COMPARATIVE VIEW 237

heroes and gods. The biographical instinct is thus seen to be
deep-seated and ancient, carrying us back, in truth, to the
very borderland of history and myth.

With the pre-historical manifestations of biography we
need not concern ourselves. The attempt would be, with
out doubt, interesting, but hardly profitable for the purpose
of this sketch. We may take up the thread of our investi
gation from the date of the first specimen of deliberate
biography, the Memorabilia of Socrates, the work of
Xenophon (430 ?~355 ?), dating from about 390 B.C. The
Memorabilia is the tribute of a loyal and appreciative
disciple to the memory of a great master rather than a
complete biography. The work lacks artistic unity and
coherence; it contains little of the history of the steps by
which Socrates advanced from youth to old age; the
whole forms a one-sided picture, because Xenophon con
fines himself chiefly to one period of Socrates' life, and to
one aspect of that period the aspect of the skilful and
influential teacher. The moral and practical in the life of
Socrates were the elements which appealed to Xenophon,
and as a result we feel that Xenophon gives us less, just as
we feel that Plato gives us more, than the true Socrates.
Nevertheless, the Memorabilia is an excellent experiment in
biography, and not without value to those who, at the pre
sent day, undertake life-writing. It is the work of one who
knew his subject well; it contains much conversation, and
without doubt gives us a clear notion of Socrates' method
of teaching; it strikes a wise balance between undue praise
on the one hand and uncharitable blame on the other; if
primarily a tribute, it is fundamentally sane in its attitude.
We may still study, with benefit to ourselves, this first
authentic and deliberate specimen of biography.

The Greeks furnish us not only the first biography, but
also, in Plutarch (46-120 A.D.), the greatest among ancient

238 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

biographers. Plutarch's Parallel Lives are so well known,
and have exerted so great an influence upon history, bio
graphy, and literature, that no further comment upon them
is here necessary. The tale of Greek biographers does not,
however, close with Plutarch. To Diogenes Laertius
(second century) we owe the Lives of Philosophers, which,
although thrown together without orderly arrangement,
and on the whole of doubtful critical value, yet preserve
information in regard to the private life-details of ancient
philosophers, anecdotes of their lives, and quotations from
lost works, otherwise unknown to us. In short, the work of
Diogenes Laertius is our chief source for the history of
Greek philosophy, and upon it all modern histories of the
subject are based. Philostratus (c. 170-245) has given us
the Lives of the Sophists, a series of " picturesque impres
sions " of the leaders among the so-called sophistical philo
sophers; and the In Honour of Apollonius of Tyana, a
work biographical in method, but pronounced by critics to
be " a philosophical and historical romance." * Olympio-
dorus of Alexandria (6th century) wrote in Greek a Life of
Plato. These are the chief manifestations of the form:
from them one may gain a clear notion of the theory and
the practice of biography as set forth by the Greeks.

Among the Romans, the Illustrious Men of Cornelius
Nepos (c. 99-24 B.C.) stands first in point of time. Tacitus
(c. 55-120 A.D.) made an enduring contribution to separate
biography in the Life of Agricola, published in 97 or 98 A.D.
It was the purpose of Tacitus, in this work, to do honour to
the memory of his father-in-law; he did not, however,
allow his affection to mislead him, but wrote in a lofty tone
of dignified restraint. The work may well be studied by

1 See the brilliant study and translation, Philostratus : In Honour
of Apollonius of Tyana, by Professor J. S. Phillimore, University
of Glasgow. Oxford, 1912.

A COMPARATIVE VIEW 239

biographers as an example of " noblest eloquence " com
bined with " the most perfect good taste." Suetonius
(second century) is the Roman Plutarch. His most valu
able work is the Lives of the Twelve Caesars, a collection
replete with information in regard to the personal lives of
the Roman emperors, dealing far more with private details
of their lives than with the history of their reigns. In a
much slighter way, Suetonius wrote also the Lives of
Eminent Grammarians, Rhetoricians, and Poets.

Classical biography was chiefly collective; that is, the
Greek and Roman biographers produced collections of lives
grouped together either because the units exhibited some
common characteristic, or because the group subserved a
distinctive purpose in the author's plan. Thus Suetonius
grouped together as one work the Lives of the Caesars, just
as he did the Lives of Grammarians, Rhetoricians, and Poets,
respectively; Plutarch wrote such lives as would subserve
his purpose of parallel treatment; Diogenes Laertius wrote
the Lives of Philosophers in such a way as to develop, after
his fashion, the history of philosophy, while Philostratus
dealt with such as he could make subserve his plan of
exhibiting what he termed the sophistic movement. Of
separate biography, such as Xenophon's Memorabilia or
Tacitus' Life of Agricola, there was little.

The ancients, indeed, scarcely looked upon biography
as a separate and distinctive form of literature; for them,
it served rather as a means of historical and ethical in
struction. We are not surprised, therefore, to find that a
prevailing characteristic of classical biography was its
moral purpose. " Moral good," writes Plutarch in his
account of Pericles, " is a practical stimulus; it is no sooner
seen, than it inspires an impulse to practice; and influences
the mind and character not by a mere imitation which we
look at, but by the statement of the fact creates a moral

240 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

purpose which we form. And so we have thought fit to spend
our time and pains in writing the lives of famous persons." l
The example set by Plutarch was far-reaching. It is only in
the present that we find anything like concerted insistence
on the fact that " true biography is no handmaid of
ethical instruction " ; that any assistance rendered by
biography to ethical interests (as well as to historical and
scientific interests) should be accidental; that biography
" rules a domain of its own"; that it is, in short,
" autonomous." 2

We should never lose sight of the fact that it was not,
however, from classical models that biography in Britain
received its impulse. As we have shown in Chapter I., the
first important influence on English biography was that
exerted during the Latin period by the Scriptures and the
writings of the Church Fathers. It seems clear, in brief,
that those early attempts at life-recording were directly
inspired by the literature of the Christian Church. A point
worthy of careful notice in this connexion is the little
influence of the Old Testament biographies with their
commingling of good and bad in the chequered web of the
lives they relate; with their slight tendency to panegyric.
Moses, Saul, David these men are not represented in the
Old Testament narratives as impossible embodiments of
unapproachable virtue and divinity: the blackest spots
in their lives are revealed to us. Not thus did early British
biographers write of their subjects; they chose rather to
model their works after the Gospel narratives. The power
of a life the life of Jesus Christ had entered into the
world, and Christians, especially Churchmen, whose pro
fessional duty it was to point the way, were attempting to
mould their lives after the Great Model. The Christian

1 Lives, vol. i. p. 227, Dent's " Everyman's Library."

2 Lee, The Principles of Biography, p. 18.

A COMPARATIVE VIEW 241

world of the period was in earnest, desperately in earnest,
and strove with all the means known to ascetic discipline
to " keep the body under " and to achieve holiness in life.
Small wonder is it that the miraculous elements in both
Old and New Testaments exerted a predominating influ
ence; small wonder is it that, in their earnestness, the early
Britons overemphasised the miraculous, exaggerated the
holiness of their subjects, and wrote almost impossible
panegyrics: they were but attempting to make of their
subjects of biography, the embodiments of the ideal holy
life which they were keeping before themselves, and which
they considered it their duty to keep before the world.
The example of such writers as St. Athanasius, in his Life
of St. Anthony, could only confirm the tendencies of British
Churchmen. To these early British biographers, the models
set by pagan writers, even had their works been known,
would have made little appeal. From the time of Adamnan,
then, until after Izaak Walton had made his contribution
to the form, classical biography exerted practically no
influence in Britain. The connecting link between classical
and English biography, as we have already shown, was
Plutarch.

Thus, although English biography began eleven centuries
later than the Memorabilia, the first of the classical fore
runners; and although more than eight centuries elapsed
after the work of Adamnan before the classical proto
types chiefly through Plutarch exerted any appreciable
influence on the work of English biographers, we find
little to regret in this seemingly slow progress. Looked
upon chiefly as history; interested mostly in teaching
morality, in " celebrating definite moral qualities," bio
graphy was not concerned primarily with a delineation
of " individual characteristics." As Edmund Gosse
points out, " the true conception of biography as the

Q

242 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

faithful portrait of a soul in its adventures through life, is
very modern. We may question whether it existed, save
in rare and accidental instances, until the seventeenth
century. ... It was very difficult to teach the world that,
whatever biography is, it is not an opportunity for pane
gyric or invective, and the lack of this perception destroys
our faith in most of the records of personal life in ancient
and mediaeval times. It is impossible to avoid suspecting
that Suetonius loaded his canvas with black in order to
excite hatred against the Roman emperors ; it is still more
difficult to accept more than one page in three of the stories
of professional hagiographers. As long as it was a pious
merit to deform the truth, biography could not hope to
flourish. It appears to have originally exerted itself when
the primitive instinct of sympathy began to have free play,
that is to say, not much or often before the seventeenth
century. Moreover, the peculiar curiosity which legitimate
biography satisfies is essentially a modern thing; and pre
supposes an observation of life not unduly clouded by
moral passion or prejudice." 1 In the light of these state
ments, we thus see that English biography had not long to
wait before the dawn of the true conception of the type.

A statement made by Edward Phillips at the beginning
of his Life of Milton, 2 in addition to giving us a contem
porary estimate of English biography, also summarises
for us the chief foreign influences operative down to 1694.
Among those of the ancients considered by the English as
" the most eminent in this way of history " he names
Plutarch, Diogenes Laertius, and Cornelius Nepos. Of
" the moderns," he mentions " Machiavel, a noble Floren
tine, who elegantly wrote the Life ofCastruchio Castracano,
Lord of Luca ; Gassendus of France; and Thuanus."

1 Encyclopedia Britannica, article " Biography."
8 Prefixed to Milton's Letters of State.

A COMPARATIVE VIEW 243

His list of English biographers is limited to Sir Fulke
Greville; "Mr. Thomas Stanly l of Cumberlo Green,
who made a most elaborate improvement on Laertius";
and Izaak Walton.

Phillips was right in giving Plutarch the foremost place,
for it was the work of the Greek which formed the connect
ing link between classical and English biography. The
Parallel Lives were translated into Italian by Alexander
Jaconello of Riete in 1480, and into Spanish by Alfonso de
Palencia in 1491 ; but their influence was brought to bear
upon English writers chiefly through the admirable French
translation published by Jacques Amyot in 1565. Happily
for the work of Plutarch it found in Amyot a translator
who possessed the spirit of the Greek biographer united
with a gift of language that made the French version more
than a bald translation. Happily, also, the translation was
made when French was rising to a commanding position in
world literature. It was due in no small measure to this
French translation that Plutarch came to be recognised as
a classic " naturalised in many countries." It may be going
somewhat too far to assert that but for Amyot we should
probably have had no North's Plutarch ; but it was Amyot's
version which Thomas North translated into English in
1579, when the work of the Greek first became a living
influence in English literature. The lateness of its appear
ance in an English version indicates, in a way, the measure
of its influence upon English-speaking peoples. It was the
Rev. Edward Edwards who pointed out that if we speak
of Englishmen at large, we must admit that Plutarch has
never taken " that hold of the public mind which he took
in Italy, and still more conspicuously in France. With us,
the expressive phrase, * One of the men of Plutarch,'

1 Stanly was one of two to whom Phillips addressed the Preface
of the Theatrum Poetarum.

244 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

has never passed into a proverb, as it has with our
neighbours." 1

Nevertheless, Plutarch, once made accessible to the
English, was carefully read and his example heeded. From
Izaak Walton to James Boswell we may trace in one way or
another the influence of the Greek. Moreover, we must
always bear in mind the fact that Boswell appealed to the
authority of Plutarch, as to " the prince of ancient bio
graphers," and then proceeded to write his Life of Johnson
in such fashion as to make it bear the same resemblance to
the dicta of Plutarch in regard to biography that a full
blown rose bears to the bud. We should likewise always
bear in mind the debt which Shakespeare, through North's
translation, owes to Plutarch. Mr. Edwards, again, in an
interesting way has pointed out that " the mere literary
affiliation . . . falls short of the main truth. Shakespeare
gives sublimity to passages which he adopts (almost to the
letter) by a faculty which was his alone. But what he makes
to blaze was already in a glow. Vast as is the disparity of
intellect, there is unity of spirit between the Greek bio
grapher and the English poet. Had Shakespeare " and
here we have the main point for which we quote " Had
Shakespeare set himself to write lives, he would have gone
about the task, one feels sure, with impressions, as to its
nature and aims, very like those which Plutarch has
expressed in two famous passages of the Life of Alexander
and of the Life of Nicias. Shakespeare's regard for the
* dignity of history ' would have been much on a par with
Plutarch's." 2

Although, as we have noticed, most ancient biographical
works are collective, none of them belongs to the depart
ment of general biography; nor do we find among them

1 A Handbook to the Literature of General Biography, p. 41 .

2 Ibid. pp. 41-2.

A COMPARATIVE VIEW 245

anything resembling a dictionary of biography. 1 The cele
brated Lexicon wrought out by the industry of the Greek
lexicographer Suidas (c. loth century) is an uncritical
collection of grammatical, geographical, and biographical
information arranged in alphabetical order, bearing some
little resemblance to an historical dictionary. Its compiler
refers to a source of the biographical notices, the Onomato-
logion or Pinax of Hesychius of Miletus, and we know that
the excerpts of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, the chronicle
of Georgius Monachus, the biographies of Diogenes Laer-
tius, and the works of Athanaeus and Philostratus were
also drawn upon. We may feel sure, however, that no
dictionary of biography, in the true sense, existed among
the ancients.

The work which pointed the way for makers of biographi
cal dictionaries may well have been the small volume
compiled by Hermannus Torrentinus under the title Eluci-
darius Carminum et Historiarum : vel Vocabularius Poetic us,
continens Historias, Provincias, Urbes, Insulas, Fluvios, et
Montes Illustres, and printed at Hagenaw, in November
1514. In this little volume, among the alphabetical lists of
provinces, cities, islands, rivers, and mountains, we find
also the names of gods and illustrious men. The purpose
of the compiler was to provide a companion volume for the
readers of the classic poets. The descriptions of places are,
for the most part, brief; a number of the biographical
notices, however, are more extended, those of Medea,
Oedipus, Ulysses, and Scylla occupying twenty-eight,
twenty-nine, thirty, and thirty-three lines, respectively.
That the work fulfilled a need is evidenced by the fact that
twenty-four editions appeared before 1537. Its influence

1 R. C. Christie's suggestive article on " Biographical Dictionaries "
in the Quarterly Review (January 1884) is, unfortunately, marred
by many errors of fact.

246 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

on the French was exerted through the brothers, Robert
and Charles Estienne, who published a number of reprints,
enlargements, and revisions, which culminated in 1553 in
Charles' Latin Dictionarium Historicum, Geographicum,
ac Poeticum, the first French encyclopaedia. The Die-
tionarium formed the basis of a French work, Juigne-
Broissiniere's Dictionnaire Theologique, Historique, Poetique,
et Cosmographique, published either in 1627 (according to
the Biographic Universelle), or in 1644 (according to the
Nouvelle Biographie Generate). Poor as the work seems
when judged by present-day standards, it was of value in
its time, and, as the only historical and biographical
dictionary in the French language, it passed through at
least ten editions within the next thirty years. Estienne
must have received immense aid, however, from another
and far greater work than that of Torrentinus. We refer
to the Bibliotheca Universalis of Konrad Gesner (1516-65),
in which the author made the attempt to produce a cata
logue of " all writers living or dead, ancient or modern,
learned or unlearned, published or in manuscript, but
chiefly of those in the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew languages."
The volume was published at Zurich (Tigurinus) in Septem
ber 1545, in Latin, 1 and formed the model of all succeeding
works of this biographical and bibliographical nature.
Gesner made the attempt to give a summary of the contents,
a critical estimate, and a specimen of the style of such
writers as he could collect. A similar ambitious effort was
made by Anton du Verdi er de Vauprivas (1544-1600), in
his Prosopographia Universalis (Lyons, 1573).

From the days of Estienne's Historical Dictionary, the
French have excelled in general collections of lives pub-

1 Not in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, as a number of English writers
erroneously state: the title page r ,ords that the work is " locu-
pletissimus in tribus linguis, Latina, G^eca, et Hebraica."

A COMPARATIVE VIEW 247

lished along with other historical matter. In 1674 appeared
Louis Moreri's Grand Dictionnaire Historique, a work which
so completely surpassed all its predecessors that for a
century it set the standard. Pierre Bayle's Dictionnaire
Historique et Critique (1697), Jacques George de Chauf epic's
Nouveau Dictionnaire (1750), and Prosper Marchand's
Dictionnaire Historique (1758), were but supplements to the
work of Moreri. In 1752 the Abbe L'Advocat put forth his
Dictionnaire Historique portatif des Grands Hommes, the
first work to merit the name of a general biographical
dictionary. During the nineteenth century the French
completed their great contribution to general biography
with their deservedly famous Biographie Universelle,
Ancienne et Moderne (1843-65) and Nouvelle Biographie
Generate (1852-66).

The British were very early in the work of making
biographical and bibliographical collections somewhat after
the fashion of the works we have just been considering.
John Boston, as early as the first part of the fifteenth
century, in his well-meaning but bandied-about Catalogus
Scriptorum Ecclesiae gave a list of the principal manu
scripts contained in the English universities and monas
teries; and, although his work never came to print in its
entirety, his attempt preceded even that of Hermannus
Torrentinus. John Bale's Illustrium Majoris Britannia*
Scriptorum Summarium was the first of such British works
to appear in print, in 1548. It was followed by John Pits'
De Illustribus Britanniae Scriptoribus, printed in 1619.
The work of John Leland, which preceded that of both
Bale and Pits, did not reach publication until 1709. Although
the English were thus early in their attempts, they confined
themselves chiefly to collecting notices of their own writers,
and neglected the compilation of a dictionary of general
biography. In fact, while stimulated by such great efforts

248 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

as that made by the Bollandists in the preparation of the
A eta Sanctorum (1653), and by the works of the French
the Historical Dictionary of Charles Estienne (of which
an edition revised and enlarged by Nicholas Lloyd was
published in Latin at Oxford in 1670) and the Grand
Dictionnaire of Moreri and its supplements the English
have completed no great dictionary devoted exclusively to
general biography.

The attempt to produce a great English general bio
graphical dictionary has indeed been made, and that at a
date preceding the publication of the first volume of the
Biographie Universelle. This work, under the editorship of
George Long, was undertaken by The Society for the
Diffusion of Universal Knowledge, and progressed (18424)
through the letter A in four volumes, when, owing to lack
of adequate support, it was discontinued. The undertaking
was without doubt too ambitious. It has been estimated
that had it been completed on the scale on which it was
begun, it would have extended to one hundred and fifty
volumes equal in size to the four which were published. It
possessed many merits, however, and in such points as the
exact quotation of authorities, the careful orthography of
proper names, and the dated bibliographical lists appended
to the accounts of literary men, went far to aid the work
of those who later produced the Dictionary of National
Biography. We may doubt whether a general biographical
dictionary will ever be produced in English on the scale
of that undertaken by Mr. Long and his associates. Less
need for such a work is felt since the appearance of Dr.
William Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography
(1849), and Smith and Wace's Dictionary of Christian
Biography (1877-87), works which demonstrate that
English scholarship may rank with that of any other
country.

A COMPARATIVE VIEW 249

The nineteenth century witnessed the rise of dictionaries
devoted to national biography, a department in which the
English were slow in making a start. Already the Swedish
dictionary (Biografiskt Lexicon ofver Namnkunnige Svenska
Man) had been projected in 1835; l ^ e Dutch (Biograph-
ische Woordenboek der Nederlanderi) in 1852; the Austrian
(Biogr aphis cbes Lexicon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich) in
1856; the Belgian (Biogr aphie Rationale de Belgique) in
1866; and the German (Allgemeine Deutsche Biogr aphie)
in 1875, before the English took up the work of the Die-
tionary of National Biography in 1885. The delay, it may
be said, has been of advantage, in that the English have
been able to profit by the failures and successes of those
who preceded them in such labours. Leslie Stephen who
began the great Dictionary, and Sir Sidney Lee who
brought it to completion, made a most thorough study of
the principles underlying the production of national
biography; Mr. Lee, in particular, has succeeded in formu
lating these principles, and we may now read the story of
the methods which have combined to make the Dictionary
of National Biography the best work of its class produced
in any language. 1

Most of the early biography of the other European
countries was collective. In Spain, Ferndn Perez de
Guzman (1378-1460), sometimes referred to as "the
Plutarch of Spain," wrote between 1430 and 1454 his
Generacionesy Semblanzas, a work which comprises sketches,
rather than connected narratives, of thirty-four of the
principal persons of his time. In Italy, the fifteenth century

1 See Leslie Stephen's " National Biography " in Studies of a
Biographer, vol. i.; Lee's "National Biography" in the Cornhill
Magazine, March 1896, Principles of Biography, and " At a Jour
ney's End " in the Nineteenth Century and After (December 1912)-
together with the prefaces, etc., of the Dictionary of National
Biography.

ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

witnessed the rise of biography. During this century
Filippo Villani (d. after 1404), Vespasiano da Bistrici
(1421-98), and Paolo Giovio (1483-1552), wrought their
collections; while in the sixteenth century Giorgio Vasari
(1512-74) produced his admirable Lives of the Artists.
German biography has little to show before the latter part
of the eighteenth century. In more recent times, the output
of separate biography in France, Spain, Italy, and Ger-
many has not kept pace in quantity or quality with that
of the English language. Spain has produced no work of
international importance; Italy has produced much
biography in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, but
nothing of the highest excellence; Germany has plodded
patiently, but with no commensurate or brilliant success.
Russia is only beginning to produce biography: the bio
graphies of her greatest poets, Pushkin (1799-1837) and
Lermontov (1811-41) are yet virtually unwritten, as are
those of her greatest prose writers. Biryukov's Life of
Tolstoi perhaps represents the highest point reached thus
far by Russian biography. M. Rene Valery-Radot's Life
of Pasteur is typical of the most recent French lives.

In his brief essay on Biography ', written in 1832, Carlyle
somewhat despondently wrote : " May it not seem lament
able that so few genuinely good biographies have yet
accumulated in literature; that in the whole world, one
cannot find, going strictly to work, above some dozen, or
baker's dozen, and these chiefly of very ancient date?
Lamentable. . . . Another question might be asked: How
comes it that in England we have simply one good biography,
this Boswell's Johnson ; and of good, indifferent, or even
bad attempts at biography, fewer than any civilised
people? Consider the French and Germans, with their
Moreris, Bayles, Jordenses, Jochers, their innumerable
Memoires, and Schilderungen, and Biographies Univer-

A COMPARATIVE VIEW 251

stiles ; not to speak of Rousseaus, Goethes, Schubarts,
Jung-Stillings: and then contrast with these our poor
Birches, and Kippises, and Pecks; the whole breed of whom,
moreover, is now extinct! " This wail reminds us some
what of the cry that went up at the death of Wordsworth,
the cry which proclaimed that Poetry was dead, that the
Throne of Poetry was vacant, and perhaps permanently
vacant. And the results in both cases have been much the
same. Within four years after Carlyle had penned these
words, Lockhart had commenced his Life of Scott ; within
twenty years, Carlyle himself has written the Life of
Sterling. Within fifty years, the output of English bio
graphy, in both quantity and quality, was unexcelled.
There was no longer need of calling up the names of Tom
Birch, Andrew Kippis, and Francis Peck. Not only was
their breed extinct, it had been succeeded by a race of
giants. During the last half of the nineteenth century, no
language surpassed the English in the importance and
number of biographies written and published.

Already self-commemoration was an old and firmly-
established custom in the world when autobiography in its
first simple form appeared in the British Islands, as
exemplified by the brief sketch, already mentioned, which
the Venerable Bede attached to the Ecclesiastical History
of England in 731 A.D. It is doubtless true that the simplest
form of autobiography, the mere record of personal prowess
and personal deeds, such as we find in Egyptian and
Assyrian inscriptions, is older than the simplest form of
biography. The ego in man seems to have developed earlier
than man's appreciation of the personal worth of his
fellows. Although, beyond doubt, the first manifestation
of self-record long since perished, we may be sure that

252 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

centuries before anything that can be called European
civilisation appeared the habit of self-commemoration
was old, just as the form and habit of biography was old
long before the time of Plutarch. Tacitus, in the intro
ductory paragraphs of his Life of Agricola, not only refers
to biography as " an ancient practice," but also affirms
what convinces us that the element of apology so prominent
in autobiography is likewise of ancient origin; namely,
that " in days gone by ... many thought that to write
their own lives showed the confidence of integrity, rather
than presumption," and assures us that " no one doubted
the honesty or questioned the motives " of Rutilius and
Scaurus in writing their autobiographies. Little as we
know definitely, and few as are the authentic autobiographi
cal documents remaining to us from the earliest historical
ages, we yet know enough to convince us of the undoubted
antiquity of self-commemoration, and of the comparative
lateness of its appearance in Britain.

At the outset of an historical survey, we must bear in
mind that autobiography exists in two forms: the one a
record of mere objective events; the other a record of
subjective processes a history of the development of the
inner life, what we may call autobiography par excellence.
The objective is the primitive form, the form which takes
us back to the borderland of history, and which persists
even down to the present time. The subjective form is
comparatively modern, its first appearance dating well
within the earliest centuries of the Christian era. Late as
the subjective form was in appearing, it has surpassed the
older form in both completeness of development and
intrinsic worth. We are agreed to-day that autobiography
should be something more than mere impersonal objective
narrative of domestic or political events. We are insisting
more and more that it should be self-study, a history of the

A COMPARATIVE VIEW 253

development of the soul; we are coming to recognise that
the autobiography which is worth the name is serious and
truthful self-study. To such serious and truthful docu
ments psychologists are beginning to turn for material,
We may therefore dismiss the great majority of early,
objective self-records as only rude attempts, first sketches,
feelings after the proper form. We are safe in concluding
that the history of autobiography begins with the Christian
era. " We cannot insist too strongly that autobiography
as we know it, and in its full sense, does not exist before
Christ. . . . The great religious reformers before Christ
contain detached passages and religious moods of great
subjectivity, as all religious leaders must. But never, in
any consecutive manner, does Plato, or Confucius, or
Buddha, or any leader or reformer before Jesus Christ
suggest that what a man is, is more important than what
he does ; or that duty obliges him to study himself with
care and candour, that by such study he may assist other
blind creatures like himself." l

This origin of really important autobiography well
within authentic historical limits makes the history of its
development not difficult to trace. The continuity of
influence exerted by the works of autobiographers of the
first rank is practically unbroken. " One man writes of
himself because another writes; personal impressions are
repeated in a practically unbroken chain. Few, if any,
important autobiographies have been lost, and this is, in
itself, an illuminating circumstance. With the exception
of Sulla's Commentaries, whose effect upon Caesar was noted
by his contemporaries, the capital autobiography has
survived, and preserved its fresh effect on later minds,
more than any other type of literary work." a

The history of autobiography carries us back directly to
1 Burr, The Autobiography, pp. 31-3. * Ibid. p. 44.

254 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

three great names, Caesar, Augustine, and Jerome Cardan.
The powerful influence exerted by the self-records of these
men has left its impress upon all succeeding autobiographi
cal documents. Caesar's Commentaries belongs, of course,
to the objective form; in truth, at the present time the
third-person narrative of the Roman would scarcely be
classed as autobiography. Whatever we may think of the
Commentaries to-day, however, we must admit, after due
investigation, that this work has " inspired later auto
biography to an extent almost incalculable." The influence
of Caesar's work is easily and directly traceable. Mrs. Burr
quotes the statement of Monluc, " Ce grand capitaine, qui
tst Cesar, rrfen montre le chemin" and then affirms that
Monluc is " but one of hundreds to whom the Roman has
shown the road," and that " it is hard to find a single
objective historical record for eight hundred years which
does not avow that its inspiration came from Caesar's
Commentaries." 1

We have already remarked that the history of subjective
autobiography begins with the Christian era. It is in
keeping with the progress of human thought that, of the
two forms in which such subjective narrative manifests
itself the religious and the scientific the religious came
first. In the Confessions of Augustine, Bishop of Hippo
(354-430 A.D.), we have the beginning of complex, sub
jective autobiography actuated by religious emotion. We
may dismiss the criticism which refers to it as only " a
praise and confession of God's unmerited goodness." It
is this, to be sure; but it is far more. In the history of
confession it remains a most important document, intro
ducing as it did " to the confession proper the autobio
graphical intention and idea." The narrative follows a

1 Burr, The Autobiography, pp. 74-5. See also the reference to
Caesar in Boswell's Life of Johnson, Hill's edition, vol. iii. p. 195.

A COMPARATIVE VIEW 255

definitely formulated plan of self-study: it includes the
complete history of the subject, the sources of his sin, and
the progress of his conversion-process. " Augustine not
only taught this self-study to be full and sincere, but
furnished an imperishable classic by way of example, and
one which was to be followed by the most enthusiastic
imitation. Through him, the religious record became the
natural means of expression for the emotions of the middle
ages." l Sainte-Beuve has pointed out the fact that down
to modern times, Augustine has exerted an influence ,over
all types of the creative religious mind; that he was, in fact,
" a great empire divided among distinguished heirs." *
When Petrarch, " the first of modern men," on the top of
Mont Ventoux opened his copy of the Confessions and
fixed his eyes upon those words in which Augustine says
that " men wonder at the heights of the mountains, and the
mighty waves of the sea, and the wide sweep of rivers, and
the circuit of the ocean, and the revolution of stars, but
themselves they consider not," he awoke to the fact " that
nothing is wonderful but the soul; " and forthwith began
" to turn his inward eye upon himself." In that passage
of one of his familiar letters 3 where Petrarch describes this
experience, Mrs. Burr says, " the world may almost be said
to come of age; the mind of man, if we permit Petrarch
to personify it for us, attains maturity." 4 Of such monu-

1 Burr, Religious Confessions and Confessants, pp. 42-3. See also
the references to Augustine in Mrs. Burr's The Autobiography; in
Windelband's Geschichte der Philosophic ; and C. A. Sainte-Beuve's
Port-Royal.

1 " Saint Augustin est comme ces grands empires qui ne se trans-
mettent a des heritiers m6me illustres qu'en se divivant. M. de
Saint-Cyran, Bossuet et Fenelon (on y joindrait aussi sous de
certains aspects Malebranche) peuvent 6tre dits, au dix-septieme
siecle, d'admirables demembrements de saint Augustin." Sainte
Beuve, Port-Royal, vol. i. p. 421.

* Robinson and Rolfe, Francesco Petrarcha, pp. 309-18.

4 Religious Confessions and Confessants, p. 38.

256 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

mental significance in the history of autobiography is the
work of Augustine.

The second or scientific type of subjective autobio
graphy did not appear until the sixteenth century, when,
in 1575, Jerome Cardan wrote his De Vita Propria Liber.
From the psychological point of view this book is note
worthy, marking as it does the beginning of a new era in
thought. Mrs. Burr points out to us that during the 1145
years lying between the death of Augustine in 430, and
1575, " there is absolutely no trace of scientific self-study,"
and reminds us that this fact should help us to realise
*' what a wholly fresh idea came to the Italian physician
when he set about examining himself as if he were a new
species of animal which he never expected to see again.' '
She thus feels justified in referring to the book as one " of
perfect originality," a work that " contains psychological
data which have awaited the birth and development of a
special branch of science for their elucidation," and further
asserts that " it is not too much to say that by reason of
his invention of the principle of gathering and collecting
personal data, Jerome Cardan stands in the same relation
to the new psychology as Galileo to astronomy. . . . He
is among the first manifestations of what we term the
scientific spirit; he is in the forefront of that new order
which was to change the face of the universe." l

From this psychological or subjective point of view
English autobiography was slow of development. Both
Italy and France had contributed largely to the literature
of autobiography long before anything of great value had
appeared in English. At the time of Richard Vennar, whose
Apology is an insignificant bit of merely objective record,
Cardan and Benvenuto Cellini were writing in Italy;
Monluc, Marguerite de Valois, and the Chroniclers were
1 The Autobiography, pp. 82-5.

A COMPARATIVE VIEW 257

flourishing in France. Important subjective autobiography
in English dates from comparatively modern times. True
to the general world-trend of the form, the work of George
Fox (1624-91), the " first capital English self-delineator,"
was the result of religious emotion. Lord Herbert of Cher-
bury, whose self-narrative may be mentioned along with
that of Fox, was likewise interested in religious questions,
asserting strangely enough that he published his De Vcritatt,
a work hostile to Christianity, in obedience to a voice from
heaven which spoke to him in broad daylight. The sub
jective autobiography developed but slowly, however;
from Fox to Gibbon there is, in English literature, a notice
able deficiency of such documents. The opening chapter of
Edmund Calamy's An Historical Account of my Own Life
shows that, during this interval, there was no lack of interest
in autobiography on the part of educated Englishmen. In
this chapter Calamy enumerates and discusses practically
every important self-narrative written prior to 1731. It
was not, therefore, that interest was lacking, but rather
that no vital modern document of general appeal had yet
been written; no stimulating intellectual movement had
begun. Such a document, such a movement, came soon
after Calamy had written the last pages of the Historical
Account. The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau spoke
to men just as the storm of the French Revolution was
gathering. Both book and Revolution stirred England
profoundly: the soil of men's minds was ready for the seed.
Without doubt, the strongest direct foreign influence on
English autobiography was that exerted by Rousseau.
Self-record as a fashion in England followed as a result
of the stimulating quality of the Confessions. Soon
Edward Gibbon, David Hume, and Benjamin Franklin
were writing the narratives that were in their turn to
inspire a large body of other such documents. It was

X

258 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

now that English autobiography began to rise towards its
zenith.

So great has been Rousseau's influence that English
critics have been to a certain extent misled into referring
to him as the first autobiographer of any consequence.
" They invariably refer to him as the parent of the whole
introspective crew," writes Mrs. Burr. In this connexion,
Leslie Stephen's remarks may be quoted as typical: Mr.
Stephen writes that " the prince of all autobiographers in
the full sense of the word the man who represents the
genuine type in its fullest realisation is undoubtedly
Rousseau . . . the type of all autobiographers; and for
the obvious reason that no man ever turned himself inside
out for the inspection of posterity so completely." l
Rousseau, indeed, ignorantly or with deliberate intention,
would have us believe that he was an innovator; that he
was undertaking a task not only without precedent, but
beyond successful imitation. 2 We know to-day, however,
that the Confessions only gave fresh stimulus and new life
to the old movement successively contributed to by Caesar,
Augustine, and Cardan; that, in particular, the work but
continued the scientific method begun by Cardan. We know
that Rousseau scarcely surpasses, if he does surpass, the
completeness with which Cardan " turned himself inside
out for the inspection of posterity." We need not for these
reasons disparage the work which he did; for, notwith
standing the fact that it was but a manifestation of an old
movement, it yet furnished the fresh and vital inspiration
to England, where subjective autobiography had been
limited to the religious type. It is necessary to bear in
mind, however, that Rousseau, as a scientific subjective

1 Hours in a Library, vol. iii. pp. 242-51.

a " Je forme une entreprise qui n'eut jamais d'exemple, et qui
n'aura point d'imitateur," are the words which form the opening
sentence of the Confessions.

A COMPARATIVE VIEW 259

autobiographer, was but a follower in a work in which
Jerome Cardan was the great pioneer.

Rousseau's Confessions, therefore, while the immediate
stimulus to English autobiographers, came merely as a
continuation of the Cardan method. The influence of
Cardan must not, however, be thought of as only a second
ary influence, exerted largely or only through the medium
of Rousseau; it was also a direct influence, and it is
written largely upon English as upon all other autobio
graphy. In Italy, Alfieri and Vico; in France, George
Sand and Rousseau; in England, Edward Gibbon and
David Hume, followed the Cardan method. During the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries such men as Huet,
Robert Burton, and Sir Thomas Browne referred to the
De Vita Propria Liber " as among the great intellectual
influences of their lives." As the dominance of the Latin
language declined in England, the great book of Cardan was
well-nigh forgotten, and ceased to exert its former, direct
influence. The disciples of the Italian physician, however,
whether they came under his influence at first hand or at
second, have been intellectual leaders. It is important for
us to remember that " the entire group of modern English
scientists write their lives in the scientific or Cardan
manner " ; that Herbert Spencer, whose Autobiography
forms " the culminating achievement of scientific self-
delineation," gives as his reason for writing substantially
the same as that given by Cardan. It is a matter of regret
that there is as yet no English translation of so important
a work. 1

The Italians have produced the greatest number of
important autobiographies of the subjective type. Those

1 It is to be hoped that Mrs. Burr, who has already done so much
to point out the value of Cardan's work, will give us an English
version of the De Vita Propria Liber.

2 <5o ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

of Alfieri, Goldoni, Querini, Cardan, and Cellini, together
with " the marvellously perfect fragments " of Lorenzino de
Medici, Vico, Chiabrera, Leopardi, Petrarch, and Giusti,
bear witness to the extent and value of the Italian con
tribution to documents of high psychological importance.
Mrs. Burr finds that " the crowning glory " of the Italian
autobiographer consists in " his ability to distinguish
between emotion, sentiment, and fact." She calls our
attention to the fact that a reader is never left in doubt as
to what Benvenuto Cellini was doing, as apart from what
he was feeling; that Cardan carefully differentiates his fear,
affectation, and superstition from his acts, opinions, and
accomplishment; that in Alfieri's struggle for self-control
he does not confuse what actually happened, what people
thought, and what Alfieri thought. " This extraordinary
combination of high capacity and emotion with a scientific
method," writes Mrs. Burr in conclusion, " is not to be
found in other literatures to anything like the same degree." *

The French have produced autobiographies in far greater
number and variety than have the Italians. It is to France
that we must turn for the first self-narrative written by a
woman, the work of Marguerite de Valois (d. 1549). The
value of the French contribution lies rather in the literary
quality of the work produced than in the important
psychological element; from the beginning the French
memoire has been " a literary creation rather than a
scientific document." French minds seem to be adapted to
self-study; they are " turned inward upon personalities
theirs is the aspect conscient" In this fact Mrs. Burr finds
one of the reasons why French autobiography surpasses
the English.

While the Germans have produced much autobiography,
they have given us nothing of worth from the psychological
1 The Autobiography, pp. 198-9.

A COMPARATIVE VIEW 261

point of view. Mrs. Burr devotes no section of 7 'he Auto
biography to the German contribution, for the reason that
she found it " psychologically valueless." In her opinion,
the chief cause of that partial or defective sincerity which
leads to a lower value in any autobiography is the senti
mental point of view; and this " mental habit of confusing
fact with sentiment " pervades German autobiographies.
Whether we take up the self-narratives of Richter, Kotzebue,
Stilling, Lavater, Karoline Bauer, or George Ebers, or those
of Hans Andersen and Louis Holberg, we find the same
defect. It is not that the works are uninteresting, or, in
their way, uninstructive; it is rather that "sentiment,
the sentimental attitude towards what concerns oneself,
hangs like a hazy cloud over the narrative, obscuring facts,
distorting experience." It is when we compare German
autobiographies with those of Italy and France, that we
realise the defect to the full. " The emotion which was
heightened to passion in Italy, and clipped, drilled, for
malised to a cult of sentiment in France, has spread over
the German pages a smudge of sentimentality, besmearing,
hiding, all it touches." l

Goethe's Dichtung und Wahrheit, as by far the greatest
of German autobiographies, exemplifies the failure most
clearly. George Henry Lewes, while admitting that the
work has charm, remarks that it is " scarcely, if at all,
the kind which belongs to autobiography "; he pronounces
it only an " approximation to autobiography," in that it
lacks " the precise detail, and above all the direct eloquent
egotism which constitutes the value and the interest of
such works." In writing Goethe's Life, Lewes says that he
found the Dichtung und Wahrheit as much of a stumbling-
block as a stepping-stone. " The main reason for this,"
he asserts, " was the abiding inaccuracy of tone, which, far
1 Burr. The Autobiography, pp. 207-8.

262 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

more misleading than the many inaccuracies of fact, gives
to the whole youthful period, as narrated by him, an aspect
so directly contrary to what is given by contemporary
evidence, especially his own letters, that an attempt to
reconcile the contradiction is futile . . . the tone of the
autobiography, wherein the old man depicts the youth as
the old man saw him, not as the youth felt and lived. The
picture of youthful follies and youthful passions come
softened through the distant avenue of years. The tur
bulence of a youth of genius is not indeed quite forgotten,
but it is hinted with stately reserve. Jupiter serenely
throned upon Olympus forgets that he was once a rebel
with the Titans." 1 Mrs. Burr has no hesitancy in pro
nouncing it " the weakest autobiography the world has
ever had from so strong a hand," and affirms that " enthu
siasts over it are almost invariably to be found among
those persons who think a sincere self-revelation per
nicious and undesirable." 2

One rises from a comparative study of biography with a
feeling of admiration for the work accomplished by English
authors, and with an enduring conviction that the accom
plishment of the past is but an earnest of the future. The
writers of biography in English have succeeded better than
those in any other language in approximating the ideal of
portraying faithfully the development of a soul. The lan
guage that has produced Walton's Lives, Johnson's Lives
of the Poets, Boswell's Life of Johnson, Lockhart's Life of
Scott, Carlyle's Life of Sterling, Froude's Life of Carlyle, and
Allen's Life of Phillips Brooks, together with the autobio
graphies of Franklin, Hume, Gibbon, Mill, Ruskin, Spencer,

1 Life of Goethe, Preface (Second Edition).
8 The Autobiography, pp. 68-9.

A COMPARATIVE VIEW 263

and Mrs. Oliphant, may well invite the closest comparative
inspection. To be sure, English biographers have profited
by close study of the biography of other nations, especially
by a study of the classic examples; they are and have been
glad to be " the heirs of all the ages." It nevertheless
remains true that whatever they have seen fit to borrow,
they have amplified and improved. They found the bio
graphical literature of the world meagre and undeveloped;
they left it, largely as a result of their own labour and
example, rich and full.

264 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

CHAPTER XI

ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY AS LITERATURE

MANY definitions of literature have been attempted; but,
like many another term in common use, the word is not
only difficult, it is well-nigh impossible, to define. We
may, however, accept a definition which, if not logically
perfect, is yet suggestive. Let us say that literature is the
record of the best thought of a race expressed in such artistic
form as to inspire and elevate the soul. In this sense, the
mere record of positive knowledge does not constitute
literature. There is a mystic borderland where mere
expression of thought merges into the pure gold of litera
ture; we recognise the result if we cannot analyse the
process. We recognise beneath all true literature the
tremendous, yet subtile and restrained, force of imagina
tion; we recognise the qualities of beauty and of power;
beauty that is not mere external ornament, but a part of
the substance; power that is dependent not on any one
clement, but upon a union of all. If we think of literature
as necessarily founded upon imagination, as possessing
these qualities of beauty of form and expression resulting in
the power to inspire and elevate humanity, then English
biography from its earliest dawn must be classed as litera
ture in ever-increasing measure.

Its development as a department of letters was greatly
retarded, of course, by its being considered only a branch of
history. It was long kept out of its true kingdom. A hand
maiden to both history and literature, its own peculiar
virtues were for many years overlooked and neglected.

ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY AS LITERATURE 265

Biography did not fully assert its independence until the
last years of the eighteenth century. It is only in recent
times that histories of literature have recognised the claims
of biography to equal rank with other forms of prose. We
have accepted the poetry and the prose of English authors,
and have been content to consult biographies for the
details of their lives; we have looked upon these life-
records, in the main, as mere storehouses of information.
We have scarcely deigned to acknowledge that these same
biographies may also be literature of a high order.

The literary value of much biography has been marred
by a too great insistence upon the ethical purpose. It is
the old defect, a defect as old, at least, as Plutarch. From
the time of Adamnan to the middle of the nineteenth
century, and even later, English biography has been made
to serve an ethical purpose. There has been far too much
insistence by writers of the form upon the fact that " bio
graphy conveys useful instruction"; that "it sets before
us the lives of eminent men, that we may imitate their
virtues or avoid their vices." l The mental habit of con
sidering biography in this light has led on the one hand to
the production of fulsome panegyric; on the other, to
malicious diatribe. So long as biography is looked upon
simply as a medium through which to convey " useful
information " for the sake of ethics, so long is it kept from
its own true mission. Biography must be allowed to stand
or fall of itself. Let it but relate faithfully the history of a
human soul, without any warping of the truth for purposes
either of panegyric or invective; let it but place before us
a true narrative, without any straining for effect or any
drawing of a moral, and it will not fail to speak to us clearly
and influence us powerfully. " If my portrait of her is
correct," writes George Herbert Palmer in his Life of Alice
1 Burdy, Life of Shelton, p. 9, Oxford edition.

2 66 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

Freeman Palmer, " invigoration will go forth from it and
disheartened souls be cheered." l It was chiefly because
Mr. Palmer recognised that such a result was secondary to
the main purpose that he achieved success. Great poems do
not labour to draw morals, although they contain morals.
All works of art are shorn of their power when men attempt
to reduce them to slavery rather than allow them to assert
their sovereignty. Works of art cease to be works of art
when they carry about upon them the chains of any
tyrannical influence. A work of art must be as free and
sovereign as the Truth, of which, indeed, it is but a part
and a manifestation. At last, men are beginning to write
biographies which are works of art, constructed according
to truthful principles biographies that speak the truth,
not glossing over a fault lest morality may be outraged;
nor enlarging upon a virtue in order to inculcate some
" useful " lesson ; nor yet magnifying a sin in order to
make vice hideous. Without question, such biographies
will be " fruitful in lessons, stimulants to a noble ambition,
the armouries wherein are gathered the weapons with which
great battles are fought "; 2 and they will be such because
they relate truthfully what men have been and what they
have done; and consequently such narratives will thrill
the soul of every true man and woman. At the same time,
such biographies will attain unto the full rank of literature.
From the beginning, we have said, English biography has
been worthy, at least in part, to be classed as literature.
In the long period extending from 690 to the discontinuance
on the one hand of English biography written in Latin, and,
on the other, of biography as exemplified by saints' lives,
we find much that deserves the name of literature. The
whole of the last chapter of Adamnan's Life of St. Columba
lingers in our minds like the softened strains of a great
P. 4. 2 Adapted from Lewes, Life of Goethe, p. i.

ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY AS LITERATURE 267

cathedral organ. The Venerable Bede's account of St.
Cuthbert's death, together with many passages in the Lives
of the Abbots of the Monasteries of Wearmouth and J arrow,
strike similar responsive chords in our hearts. In Eddius'
Life of Wilfrid we catch the power of a strong and turbulent
soul, undaunted by assemblies or kings; in the Magna
Vita of St. Hugh we feel the different power of a humbler,
gentler life. The stories of Anselm and of Becket reveal to
us the sweet humanity of a consecrated life and the daunt
less courage of a steadfast purpose. The narratives just
named are the greater types of a numerous class which con
tains many passages that cause us to glow with admiration
for the bravery and devotion of early churchmen; that
humble our pride as we learn of the humility of the great;
that come to us out of the past as trumpet calls to duty.
They are written in a foreign tongue, but not even the garb
of a Latin idiom none too well expressed can conceal the
beauty of the thought. These passages stand one sure test of
great literature the test of translation. From the tomb of
mediaeval Latinity to a modern English resurrection, their
beauty arises undimmed. Nor must we forget all the wealth
of quaintness and humour and whimsicality with which the
English verse lives abound.

At first thought, we should scarcely expect to find a
literary quality in the works of the antiquarians and com
pilers. We are not accustomed to thinking of alphabetical
and chronological compilations in terms of literature. Yet
not even during this prosaic period of biographical develop
ment could the English genius be entirely eclipsed. It may
be that the searcher needs to carry with him a strongly
expectant and unusually sympathetic spirit to find the
pearls; at any rate, the pearls are there. One is repaid for
turning through the dusty Latin pages even of Leland,
Bale, Pits, and their successors. Now and then one chances

268 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

upon such narratives as Thomas Dempster has written of
himself. The reward is increasingly greater as one turns to
Anthony Wood and Thomas Fuller. In all of these indus
trious mortals there are occasional touches of originality;
flashes of humour; displays of primitive emotion religious
and race hatred, superstition, blind fear; there are records
of beliefs now discarded. That strong current of humanity,
which like a mighty subterranean river runs beneath the
lives of all men even of antiquarians and compilers, who
are usually considered the most " dry-as-dust " of mortals
could not be entirely suppressed. It is most clearly
evident, in its best form, in the biographical works of
Thomas Fuller. The Abel Redevivus and the Worthies will
never disappoint, if one only approaches them in the right
mood; nor need any of the others which occupy the same
shelf. There is a place in the great biographical firmament
even for the least of these names. May we not adapt the
words of " Master Quarles, father or son," and say that, if
not as great lights, at least as small ones, the antiquarians

and compilers may

" fairly shine
Within this Skie of lustrious Starres ";

and that even if their shining is dim and uncertain it is also
true that

" Thus, O thus oft Sol's rayes most rare,
With duskie clouds ecclipsed are? " l

After the beginning of biography written in the English
language and before the publication of BoswelPs Johnson
there were produced a number of works not many to be
sure which are entitled to rank as almost pure literature;
that is, they have in themselves a literary quality of such
value as to make them contributions to literature, as great
as are the facts which they contain to literary history.
1 From verses on Berengarius in Abel Redevivus, pp. 7-8.

ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY AS LITERATURE 269

Their rank as literature, in short, is well-nigh independent
of their worth as historical documents. 1 Such narratives as
Roper's More, Cavendish's Wolsey, the five of Walton's
Lives, John Evelyn's Life of Margaret Godolphin, Gold
smith's biographical sketches, and most of Johnson's Lives
of the Poets, belong to this class. These examples show
what was true of English biography as literature until
Boswell's day, that the literary quality was due rather to
the writer of the narrative than to the kind of materials
with which he worked. We can call no one of the works
just enumerated an authoritative, complete biography
wrought from full and exhaustive materials materials of
great literary excellence upon which the author leaned
heavily. Most of them belong to the incomplete sketch
type. All of them, however, bear the unmistakable stamp
of personality the personality of the writer. They are
great literary productions because their authors possessed
great literary ability. In any lesser hands they would have
been dull and commonplace; we might value them for the
facts which they contain, but we should never cherish them

1 In this connexion Edward Dowden's excellent words must not
be omitted: " There are two kinds of written lives of men which
deserve to remain amongst us as enduring and faithful monuments.
There is the rare and fortunate work of genius; this in its origin is
related to imagination and creative power as closely as to judgment
and observation ; we can hardly pronounce whether it be the child
of Memory, or of her daughters, the Muses, for it is at once a perfect
work of art and an infallible piece of history. It portrays the man,
in few lines or many, but in lines each one indispensable and each
characteristic ; it may seem to tell little, yet in fact it tells all ; from
such a biographer no secrets are withholden, nor does he need many
diaries, letters, and reminiscences of friends; he knows as much
about the man he undertakes to speak of as Shakespeare knew about
Hamlet, or Titian about his magnificoes that is, everything. Mr.
Carlyle's Life of Sterling was perhaps the last volume placed on the
narrow shelf containing the biographies in all languages which
belong to this class. But there is also what we could ill lose, the
work of knowledge, and labour, and patience, and zeal, and studious
discrimination, and enforced impartiality." Studies in Literature
(first series), p. 159.

270 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

for the genius which they reflect. Works of this high
quality are few, since there are few who are capable of pro
ducing them. Present-day methods of biography, more
over, make less demand upon the sheer literary skill of the
biographer; to-day a large part in most cases by far the
larger part of the material used is furnished by the sub
ject of the narrative; in consequence, the literary skill
demanded in the production of a Life is less the skill
of unbroken narrative, and more the skill of artistic
construction, of selection and rejection, of judgment and
taste.

Boswell it was who firmly established the custom of
using the letters and all other available documents of the
subject of biography. With the admission of these docu
ments came the shifting of the burden of responsibility for
the literary quality : the biographer was no longer entirely
dependent upon himself; he could now turn to the materials
left by the subject to letters, diaries, reminiscences, frag
ments of autobiography and by subjecting these to a
rigid selective examination, could from them construct an
artistic whole. Letters especially have gone far to add to the
literary quality of most great biographies; in themselves
one of the oldest forms of literature, they have never failed
when chosen with taste and judgment to add their own rare
flavour to life-narrative. Notwithstanding the importance
of documents, they endanger the very quality which they
most improve: they make great demands upon the skill of
the biographer. What might easily have been a work of art
is frequently allowed to degenerate into a mere hodge
podge. " The mere collocation of all documents " does not
result in a finished literary product. It is possible, there
fore, as frequent failures bear witness, for rich materials in
the hands of an unskilful biographer to yield poor results.
To work with materials of great literary value a biographer

ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY AS LITERATURE 271

need not necessarily be a facile composer; he does need,
however, to be a man of most discriminating judgment
he must be able to recognise literature when he encounters
it, and must have the power to select and arrange with the
utmost skill. Lockhart's Scott, Froude's Carlyle, Trevelyan's
Macaulay, and Allen's Phillips Brooks, to name only a few,
are examples wherein the literary quality of the documents
left by the subjects has been accentuated by the skill of
the biographer. Such typical works as Carlyle's Sterling,
Eliot's John Gilley (although but a brief sketch), and
Palmer's Alice Freeman Palmer help us to see, on the other
hand, the extent to which the literary quality is due almost
wholly to the biographer. The history of English biography
shows that there are almost as few great biographers with
literary judgment and architectonic skill as there are of
those great because they possess in themselves the power
to produce literature redolent of their own commanding
personalities.

Thus we do not have many names to match with those
of Roper, Cavendish, Walton, Evelyn, Goldsmith, and
Johnson. To keep them company we may select from those
no longer living the names of Boswell, Lockhart, Stanley,
Lewes, Froude, and Allen; of others there are none worthy
to move in the same company. A host of writers who have
tried to perpetuate the memory of some little krown
person demonstrate the great powers necessary for success
in such undertakings. Since the publication of the Life of>
Sterling, George Herbert Palmer's Life of Alice Freeman
Palmer is almost the only biography entirely worthy of a
place upon the shelf next to Carlyle's great work. We are
best able to appreciate the literary quality of Boswell,
Lockhart, and Froude when we compare them with lesser
works constructed from materials left by the subjects of
biography. Hayley and Moore, for example, each working

272 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

with the best of literary materials, help us to appreciate not
only how easy it is to miss the way, but how great is the
triumph when the way has been followed to success.

There is nothing whatever remarkable about the fact
that there are few biographies in the English language of
high literary quality. In common with all other forms of
literature, the highest excellence in this particular form is
rare. In common, too, with all other forms, even the best
biography is not all good, but is good only in parts. These
parts have increased in number as the entire body of
English literature has widened and deepened. Particularly
has the literary quality of biography increased as English
prose style has developed. We have only to examine the
body of biography produced before Johnson and Goldsmith
and that produced after them to convince ourselves of this.
The style of most biographies written before 1740 is
unattractive; one derives little pleasure from the mere
act of reading. After Johnson and Goldsmith made their
contribution, the style yields pleasure. To-day, although
biographies are written rapidly, and the output militates
against high literary excellence, few of them are difficult
to read; the style of the best is uniformly good.

The literary quality of autobiography quite naturally
depends entirely upon the writer. The entire production,
in substance, form, tone, and style, is woven out of the
inner consciousness of the autobiographer. The charm and
beauty of this form, therefore, is most evident when a great
mind freely and unaffectedly unfolds itself. For this reason,
the great bulk of mere objective autobiography is almost
wholly lacking in literary excellence. Such excellence per
vades the great subjective records; we find it in greater or
less degree in the self -narratives of Gibbon, Hume, Franklin,
Brydges, De Quincey, Mill, Ruskin, Mrs. Oliphant, Lucy
Larcom, and many others. We find it less common in the

ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY AS LITERATURE 273

purely scientific autobiographies such as those of Herbert
Spencer, Charles Darwin, and Alfred Russel Wallace.

It is perhaps true that the increasing tendency of English
biography towards great length is lessening the literary
quality. Of course, there is " a glory of the long and a
glory of the short "; but, other things being equal, it is
usually more difficult to produce an excellent short work
than an excellent long one. The short work demands the
exercise of sound judgment, cultivated taste, relentless
rejection of all that is not absolutely indispensable. It
requires that the writer shall assimilate his material; that
he shall know much and know it well, in order that he may
tell the little which contains the essence of all. Such a
work has all the strength and simplicity of a Greek temple :
everything is in proportion; there is not a superfluous
feature; there is the beauty of straight-line effects. The
long biography, on the other hand, although now and then
wrought with similar skill, usually impresses us by its very
size. Its effect upon us is not unlike that of a great cathe
dral. We are overpowered by its vastness, by the multitude
of its chapels, oratories, naves, and aisles; we carry away
from it a confused sense of towers and flying buttresses and
pinnacles and gargoyles and the dim lights of splendidly
coloured windows. We know that it is magnificent; but
its very magnificence overwhelms us. A part of its greatness
is rather the greatness of size than of art. Such, in a way,
is Lockhart's Life of Scott. It may be that a man of Sir
Walter's mould requires a long and elaborate biography,
just as he seems to have required great monuments. His
power of production was so unlimited; his romances so
lavishly wrought; his Abbotsford home so spacious and
magnificent ; his entire life so full and bounding, that only
a canvas of ample dimensions could contain all the details;
only a Gothic cathedral could compass the spirit. Even

s

274 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

admitting all this, it is difficult to see how the inclusion of
extracts from legal debates, fragments of imperfect or
discarded poetry, or the full text of letters only a part of
which are to the point, add to the literary excellence of
such a work. The danger of great length, of great size, is
the danger of sacrificing the significant for the insignificant,
of hiding the truly characteristic beneath a multitude of
details. The two, three, four volume biography savours too
much of German prolixity.' English literature is none too
rich in complete, authoritative biographies of moderate
length.

It is, to be sure, difficult to compare great works. Walton,
Johnson, Goldsmith, Boswell, Lockhart, Carlyle, and
Froude are, each in his own way, excellent biographers:
each has made a lasting contribution to English literature
in the department of biography. From the work of such
artists we may learn something of the qualities which go to
make biography rank as literature. An examination of
their works reveals that in essential features all are similar.
Fundamentally, they are marked by simplicity, straight
forwardness, unaffectedness. The purpose of the authors,
in each case, has been to put before us such semblance of a
man as they have been able to construct from the materials
of which they were possessed. They have kept steadily
before themselves the one aim of unfolding a unified narra
tive, and to this aim all others have been subordinated.
It is evident that style with them has been a secondary
consideration; they have attained excellence as a result
of the spirit in which they have wrought : in keeping before
themselves a clear and definite purpose, and in working
out this purpose with straightforward, unaffected precision,
they have secured the ideal of style a manner of expres
sion perfectly adapted to the matter in hand. There is no
indication that any one of these writers has endeavoured

ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY AS LITERATURE 275

to display his own personal cleverness. Most of them were
possessed of a large-hearted humanity; most of them
understood the frailties of human nature; most of them
were charitable; all strove to be scrupulously honest. In
the presence of the deepest human emotions they were
reserved. Great literature is founded upon strong feeling,
upon large-hearted humanity: it is marked by simplicity,
straightforwardness, unaffectedness, clarity, reserve, truth.
The best of our English biography is marked by these
qualities; always, in examining masterpieces, we find that
the superficial differences of method followed by individual
biographers do not blur the similarity of the underlying
principles. There is an abiding unity beneath all the
manifest diversity.

We may glance briefly at the manner in which three
English writers have described the deaths of their subjects.
These extracts may stand as typical of the best work
achieved by biographers in the description of an event that
easily lends itself to the display of false sentiment on the
one hand, or of mere rhetoric on the other. Herein we may
find simplicity, emotion, reserve. The first is from Fulke
Greville's Life of Sir Philip Sidney ; it is the best portion
of the work, and exhibits the manner in which strong
emotion, breaking the bonds of a fettering prose style,
clothes itself in fitting and stately language. Lord Brooke
has been describing the battle before Zutphen; in continu
ing he tells us how

"... an unfortunate hand out of those fore-spoken trenches brake
the bone of Sir Philip's thigh with a musket shot. The horse he
rode upon, was rather furiouslie cholleric, than bravely proud, and
so forced him to forsake the field, but not his back, as the noblest
and fittest biere to carry a martiall commander to his grave. In
which sad progress, passing along by the rest of the army, where his
uncle the general was, and being thirsty with excess of bleeding, he
called for drink, which was presently brought him; but as he was

276 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

putting the bottle to his mouth, he saw a poor souldier carryed along,
who had eaten his last at the same feast, gastly casting up his eyes
at the same bottle. Which Sir Philip perceiving, took it from his
head before he drank, and delivered it to the poor man, with these
words, ' Thy necessity is yet greater than mine.' And when he had
pledged this poor souldier, he was presently carried to Arnheim. . . .
" The last scene of this tragedy was the parting of the two brothers :
the weaker showing infinite strength in suppressing sorrow, and the
stronger infinite weakness in expressing it. ... And to stop this
naturall torrent of affection in both, [Sir Philip] took his leave, in
theis admonishing words: ' Love my memorie, cherish my friends;
their faith to me may assure you they are honest. But above all,
govern your will and affections by the will and Word of your
Creator; in me, beholding the end of this world, with all her vanities.'
And with this farewell, desired the company to lead him away.
Here the noble gentleman ended the too short line of his life, in
which path, whosoever is not confident that he walked the next way
to eternall rest, will be found to judge uncharitably." l

" I found him entirely himself, though in the last extreme of
feebleness," writes Lockhart in telling of Scott's death. " His eye
was clear and calm every trace of the wild fire of delirium extin
guished. ' Lockhart,' he said, ' I may have but a minute to speak
to you. My dear, be a good man be virtuous be religious be a
good man. Nothing else will give you comfort when you come to
lie here.' He paused, and I said, ' Shall I send for Sophia and
Anne ? ' ' No,' he said, ' don't disturb them. Poor souls ! I know
they were up all night. God bless you all ! ' With this he sunk
into a very tranquil sleep, and, indeed, he scarcely afterwards
gave any sign of consciousness, except for an instant on the arrival
of his sons. . . . About half-past one p.m. on the 2ist of September,
Sir Walter breathed his last, in the presence of all his children. It
was a beautiful day so warm that every window was wide open
and so perfectly still that the sound of all others most delicious
to his ear, the gentle ripple of the Tweed over its pebbles, was
distinctly audible as we knelt around the bed, and his eldest son
kissed and closed his eyes. No sculptor ever modelled a more majestic
image of repose."

This is the way in which Froude writes of Carlyle's passing:

1 Works of Fulke Greville Lord Brooke, vol. iv. pp. 1 30-40 (The
Fuller Worthies' Library).

* Life of Scott, vol. vii. pp. 393-4.

ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY AS LITERATURE 277

" When I saw him next his speech was gone. His eyes were as if
they did not see, or were fixed on something far away. I cannot say
whether he heard me when I spoke to him, but I said, ' Ours has
been a long friendship; I will try to do what you wish.' This was
on the 4th of February, 1881. The morning following he died. He
had been gone an hour when I reached the house. He lay calm and
still, an expression of exquisite tenderness subduing his rugged
features into feminine beauty. I have seen something like it in
Catholic pictures of dead saints, but never, before or since, on any
human countenance." l

This chapter, we should add in closing, attempts no more
than to hint at the wealth of literature contained in the
great mass of English biography. It is perhaps more
difficult to exhibit biography by quotation than any other
form of composition. Enough has been said if the reader
feels an awakened and growing desire to go to the sources
for himself.

1 Life of Carlyle (In London), vol. ii. p. 469.

278 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

CHAPTER XII

IN CONCLUSION

As we come to the close of this historical survey, we find
the total achievement of English biographers claiming our
attention. What has been accomplished during so long a
period? Before turning directly to the answer of this
question, we need again to bear in mind that biography
began in the British Islands at a late period in the general
history of the form ; that for many centuries it was written
in an alien language; that it was for a still longer period
regarded as merely a branch of history; and that, until
comparatively recent times, its free course was hindered
by the dominating influence of an ethical purpose. It is
not surprising, therefore, that its development has been
retarded. We have followed the slow course of that develop
ment from 690 A.D. to the end of the Latin period; we have
seen its more hopeful progress during the seventeenth and
early eighteenth centuries; and have observed how, from
1744, that progress has been continuous and almost unham
pered. A summary review will enable us more fully to
appreciate the achievement wrought during twelve centuries.
Appearing as it did late in the general history of the
form, English biography has profited by a study of all that
had been produced before 690 A.D., as well as of all produced
since that date. In other words, its foundations are laid in
the past, and its entire fabric has been wrought according
to principles brought from far: it has put the whole world
under contribution. It has not been, however, merely

IN CONCLUSION 279

imitative; it has given large return to the world for every
idea that has been received. We may say, then, that
English biographers have accomplished these important
results :

(1) Working on foundations laid in the past, they have
evolved a clear definition of the form. When John Dryden
in 1683 defined biography as " the history of particular
men's lives," he not only introduced a new word into the
English language, he also introduced a new notion of the
word defined into the mind of the world. His definition
helped to bring about the next important result.

(2) Working upon Dryden's definition, English bio
graphers have freed the form from the trammels of history
proper.

(3) They have cleared biography of panegyric and
invective, and hence have freed it from the ethical purpose.

(4) They have refused to allow it to serve as a hand
maiden of science, and have thus established its complete
independence within its own domain; they have made it
autonomous. " Any assistance that biography renders
these three great interests ethical, historical, and scientific
should be accidental; such aid is neither essential nor
obligatory." l

(5) Accepting the principles set forth by Plutarch, they
have fashioned upon them such remarkable biographies
as Boswell's Life of Johnson, Lockhart's Life of Scott,
Carlyle's Life of Sterling, and Froude's Life of Carlyle.

(6) More fully than the biographers of any other nation,
they have developed the principles of national biography
and have produced the best body of such biography in
existence.

(7) From the standpoint of importance of subject,
skilful workmanship, and literary quality, they have

1 Lee, Principles of Biography, p. 18.

280 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

produced the largest number of great biographies in the
world.

One leaves a study of biography with the impression that
man is yet the most absorbingly interesting subject to man.
The amount of life-narrative written, as well as the demand
for what is produced, bears witness to the fact that however
much man may be engrossed in material pursuits, in the
mere things of the world, he is yet deeply interested in
his fellows. The manifest interest in the form shows one,
too, that man is still the idealist. He is eager to read the
story of those other men who have lived bravely. That
world-old tendency to succumb to panegyric, that charac
teristic English habit of striving to make biography serve
a moral end, bears witness also to the thirsting of mankind
to rise above itself. Life-narratives get more closely to the
hearts of men than impersonal histories. " The great charm
of biography consists in the individuality of the details,
the familiar tone of the incidents, the bringing us acquainted
with the persons of men whom we have formerly known
only by their works or names, the absence of all exaggera
tion or pretension, and the immediate appeal from theories
to facts." l Taking all things into consideration, we should
not, perhaps, deplore what we are inclined to call the
present-day " excess of biography." In most cases, life-
narrative is profitable reading.

One leaves the study, too, with a feeling of the intangi
bility of this " soul stuff " which goes to the making of
mind and spirit; one feels a hopelessness of ever really
getting at the heart of a man. " But what is it to tell the
facts that he was born, married or lived single, and died ? "

1 Article on Lady Morgan's Life of Salvator Rosa, in Edinburgh
Review (July 1824), p. 317.

IN CONCLUSION 281

asks Egerton Brydges. " What is common to all can convey
no information. We desire to know an author's feelings,
his modes of thinking, and his habits; nay, even his
person, his voice, and his mode of expressing himself; the
society in which he has lived, and the images and lessons
which attended upon his cradle." l These are the fleeting,
intangible, elusive materials which try the soul of a bio
grapher. Boswell records a dictum of Dr. Johnson, that
" they only who live with a man can write his life with
any genuine exactness and discrimination; and few people
who have lived with a man know what to remark about
him." 2 Carlyle was of the opinion that " a well-written
Life is almost as rare as a well-spent one," and that " there
are certainly many more men whose history deserves to be
recorded, than persons willing and able to record it." *
" The impossibility of fathoming a great man's mind "
or any man's mind, for that matter is impressed upon one
more forcibly than ever by the reading of many biographies.
It was no doubt because of the difficulty involved in
approximating truthful biography, that Wordsworth,
Tennyson, and many others have given it as their opinion
that the utterances of a poet may more nearly constitute
his biography than can anything which is written about
him. Tennyson, especially, insisted that life was too subtile
to be confined within the covers of a biographical record;
it was his own opinion " that Merlin and the Gleam would
probably be enough of biography for those friends who
urged him to write about himself." His opinion is still
more clearly set forth in the following sonnet :

" Old ghosts whose day was done ere mine began.
If earth be seen from your conjectured heaven,
Ye know that History is half-dream aye even
The man's life in the letters of the man.

1 A utobiography, vol. i. p. 89. Life of Johnson, Hill, vol. ii. p. 446.
* Essay on Richter.

282 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

There lies the letter, but it is not he
As he retires into himself and is :
Sender and sent-to go to make up this,
Their offspring of this union. And on me
Frown not, old ghosts, if I be one of those
Who make you utter things you did not say,
And mould you all awry and mar your worth;
For whatsoever knows us truly, knows
That none can truly write his single day,
And none can write it for him upon earth." 1

There is ample testimony that many are in substantial
agreement with Tennyson as regards both biography and
autobiography. We are accustomed to think of the great
autobiographical value of journals, diaries, etc., yet under
date of December 14, 1853, Longfellow wrote in his journal:
" How brief this chronicle is, even of my outward life.
And of my inner life, not a word." In verses that contain
more of truth than of poetry Frances Ridley Havergal
writes thus:

" AUTOBIOGRAPHY! So you say,

So do I not believe!

For no men or women that live to-day,
Be they as good or as bad as they may.

Ever would dare to leave
In faintest pencil or boldest ink
All they truly and really think,
What they have said and what they have done,
What they have lived and what they have felt,
Under the stars or under the sun. . . .

Autobiography ? No !
It never was written yet, I trow. . . .

You say 'tis a fact that the books exist,
Printed and published in Mudie's list,

Some in two volumes and some in one
Autobiographies plenty. But look!

I will tell you what is done

1 Sonnet written originally as a preface to Becket. Published in
Preface to A If red Lord Tennyson, a Memoir by his Son.

IN CONCLUSION 283

By the writers, confidentially !
They cut little pieces out of their lives

And join them together,
Making them up as a readable book.

And call it an autobiography,
Though little enough of the life survives.

Ah no! We write our lives indeed,

But in a cipher none can read

Except the author. He may pore

The life-accumulating lore
For evermore.

And find the records strange and true,

Bring wisdom old and new.

But though he break the seal,

No power has he to give the key,
No licence to reveal.

We wait the all -declaring day,

When love shall know as it is known;
Till then, the secrets of our lives are ours and God's alone." l

Not dissimilarly has Walt Whitman written:

" When I read the book, the biography famous,

And is this, then, (said I), what the author calls a man's life?
And so will some one, when I am dead and gone, write my life ?
(As if any man really knew aught of my life;
Why, even I myself, I often think, know little or nothing of my

real life;

Only a few hints a few diffused, faint clues and indirections,
I seek, for my own use, to trace out here.) " '

In the light of such testimony, the Rev. Thomas David
son's exclamation seems to carry weight : " And if a man
has so much ado to understand his own heart, how much
less valuable will be his diagnosis of his neighbour's."
The nearest approximation to the truth would seem to
come from a union of biography and autobiography the
result of a man's own record of himself carefully supple
mented by a discriminating analysis and interpretation

1 Poem, Autobiography, May 1869.

" When I Read the Book," Leaves of Grass, p. 14.

284 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

written by some other person able and willing to speak
the truth. " Perhaps," writes Mr. Edwards, " the auto-
biographer is most usefully employed when he acknow
ledges to himself that he can, at the best, but supply rough
material for another man to work upon. . . . Such material,
how imperfect soever, must always be numbered among
the best sources of true biography. Whatever the admix
ture of fallacy, and alike whether the fallacy arise from
deceit or from self-delusion, an autobiography cannot but
be, in its measure, a true revelation of the man that com
posed it. It cannot but show (sometimes in the writer's
despite) much of the soul within, as well of the garb in
which that soul was clothed, and of the circumstances in
the midst of which it acted and strove. The mental measure
of a biographer would seem to lie in the degree in which he
is able to read between the lines of such autobiographic
material." 1

From no angle, in short, does the task of biography
seem easy, whether one is writing of self or of another.
Perhaps no other form of composition is so difficult; no
other deals with such elusive material. Other forms of
composition deal with thought and emotion things
subtile and elusive enough in themselves but biography
deals with the source of thought and emotion, with man
himself in his inward and outward manifestations. Who is
sufficient for such a task ?

" In biography, as in other walks of intellectual labour, a man
must set his aim much above his reach, if he would really attain the
full limit of his real power. The ideal ' biographer ' has to seek a
more than possible harmony between the beginning of a life and its
end on earth or he will fail to elicit from the small incidents of
youthful days, and from the unripe strivings of early manhood, the
indications of character which they so often contain. To the eye

1 A Handbook to the Literature of General Biography, p. 18.

IN CONCLUSION 285

that has gained real insight, a trivial anecdote of childhood may
very truthfully present

' The baby figure of the giant mass
Of things to come, at large.'

In proportion as the biographer succeeds in putting saliently before
the eyes of his readers the various sets so to speak of outward
circumstance and surroundings in which his subject was successively
placed, and extracts from the evidence of what the man ultimately
did and was, the loss or gain derived from those external influences,
he becomes the true narrator of a life. He becomes pre-eminently
that, if he be able to elicit, as he nears the earthly close of the tale
he is telling, what it really was that the man he writes about
gathered out of this life, to carry with him into the next. If the
biographer be able to do this in some degree, he makes his readers
to feel that our human life is always a probation, as well as a combat,
and not merely to acknowledge that deep truth in conventional
language. No biographer can possibly do this perfectly. The most
gifted one can but get glimpses into a human heart. He cannot see
it as it was. To make those glimpses truthful ones is to the real
biographer both cross and crown. They are at once the crucial
difficulty and the crowning glory of his task. No writer can fully
achieve it. He must, perhaps, combine something of the poet with
not a little of the philosopher in order to do any part of it. But
unless he can make some approximation to such a result, he has
mistaken his calling. And the mere attempt to achieve it is a func
tion which belongs to the biographer distinctively. It is no part of
the work of the historian of a nation." >

" There is neither picture, nor image of marble, nor arch
of triumph, nor pillar, nor sumptuous sepulchre, can
match the durableness of an eloquent biography, furnished
with the qualities which it ought to have," wrote wise old
Jacques Amyot in 1 565.2 For more than twelve centuries
British biographers, confident of the value of their work,

1 Edwards, A Handbook to the Literature of General Biography,
pp. 16-17.

Cited by Lee in the Principles of Biography from the " Aux
Lecteurs " of Amyot's translation of Plutarch's Lives: ". . . car il
n'y a ny statues, ny trophees de marbre, ny arcs de triomphe, ny
coulonnes, ny sepultures magnifiques, qui puissent combattre la durte
d'une Histoire eloquente, accomplie de qualitez qu'elle doit avoir."

286 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

have been labouring to furnish it with " the qualities which
it ought to have." They have not yet succeeded in embody
ing all these qualities in any one work, nor in combining
them in just the ideal proportions; but they have approxi
mated success more closely than have the biographers of
any other nation. We may look forward to the future with
confidence, in the assurance that English biography that
is, all save the mere ephemeral and worthless stuff doomed
from the beginning to oblivion is to be in every way more
carefully wrought. It will not be hastily and illogically put
together. It will be more unified, more coherent, more
selective, exhibiting more completely the qualities of con
centration, brevity, and self-effacement; in short, it is
destined to be, far more than it has been in the past, a
work of art.

APPENDIX

I
BIOGRAPHICAL COMPILATIONS IN LATIN

1 . Catalogus Scriptorum Ecclesiae : John Boston. " I
know of no writer of literary memoirs in this kingdom
prior to John Boston, a monk of St. Edmund's Bury, who,
early in the fifteenth century, wrote a catalogue of the
principal manuscripts contained in our universities and
monasteries, with some account of the lives of the authors.
The title of his book, according to Bale and Pits, was
Catalogus Scriptorum Ecclesiae; but neither of these
writers are to be depended upon in point of titles. Boston's
plan was probably more general. Archbishop Usher
formerly possessed a copy of this curious manuscript,
which Dr. Thomas Gale intended to publish. This I
learn from a manuscript note of Mr. Oldys, in Fuller's
Worthies. I also learn from the same writer that, in the
latter end of the reign of King William, there appeared
an advertisement announcing a speedy publication of
Boston's book; it was never printed." B. A consider
able portion of Boston's manuscript was printed in Wilkin's
preface to Tanner's Biblioibeca Britannico-Hibernica, 1748.

2. Commentarii de Scriptoribus Brittanniae : John
Leland. Oxford, 1709. " Generally supposed to have
taken his facts from Boston ... [of whom] he makes
not the least mention. . . . His Commentarii . . . con
tain a number of important facts, which however might
have been better related in less than half the number of
pages, and that half might have been still considerably

287

288 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

abridged by omitting king Bladud, king Lucius, the
emperor Constantine, and many others who had no better
title to the rank of authors. . . . After Leland's death
his MS. fell into the hands of John Bale." B.

3. Illustrium Majoris Britanniae Scriptorum, hoc est,
Angliae^ Cambriae, ac Scotiae, Summarium : John Bale,
Ipswich, 1548. ". . . so implacably inveterate against
those of the Romish Church, that there is hardly a Billings
gate phrase in the Latin language which he has not em
ployed in their abuse. . . . Except what he borrowed
from Leland's manuscript, there is nothing valuable in
his book. At the end of the life of each author he pretends
to give a catalogue of their works, with which he was in
general so little acquainted, that he frequently multiplies
one book into five or six, by mistaking the title of a chapter
for that of a book." B. " The merits of Bale's Catalogue
are neither so many nor so eminent as is generally
supposed." Sir Thomas Duffus Hardy, Descriptive
Catalogue, Preface, p. xxxix. See also John Bale's Index of
British and Other Writers. Edited by Reginald Lane Poole
and Mary Bateson. (Anecdota Oxoniensa, Oxford, 1902.)

" Loe here the man who stir'd Romes comon shore
Untill it stunk, and stunk him out of dore.
Twelve years he serv'd the Babilonian witch;
Drank of her cup and wallowed in her ditch,
Untill the sunshine of diviner Truth
Shot saving beames into his hopefull youth:
And led him thence to serve another Saint
Whose mirth was teares, whose freedom was restraint;
Whose progresse was a banishment; whose food
Was want and famine, and whose drinke was blood:
His dayes were full of troubles, and his nights
Were sad exchanges stor'd with f eares and frights :
His wealth was poverty, his peace was strife,
His life was death: his death eternall life."

Quarles' verses on John Bale, in
Abel Redevivus, pp. 510-11.

APPENDIX 289

4. Joannis Pitsei Angli, S. Theologiae Doctoris, Liverduni
in Lotharingia Decani, Relationum Historicarum de Rebus
Anglicis, Tomus Primus. Paris, 1619. Generally known
as the de Illustribus Angliae Scriptoribus : John Pits.
This constitutes one (the fourth) of a series of volumes
prepared by Pits, and is the only one that has been printed.
The others contain the lives of the English monarchs,
bishops, and " apostolic members " of the English Church,
respectively; the original MSS. are preserved at the
collegiate church at Verdun. Pits was a Romish priest
and hence has preserved much information concerning
Catholic writers. " Not less partial to those of his own
religion than his predecessor Bale from whom he took
most of his materials without acknowledgment; but he
was infinitely more polite. . . . His book . . . abounds
with mistakes, and his lists of works are exceedingly
erroneous. He comes down to ... 1614." B.

5. Heruologia Anglica, hoc est, clarissimorum et doctissi-
morum aliquot Anglorum qui floruerunt ab anno Cbristi
M.D. usque adpresentem annum M.D.C.XX. Vivae effigies^
Vitae, et elogia. Arnheim, 1620. Henry Holland (1583-
1650?).

6. Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Scotorum : Thomas
Dempster. Bologna, 1627. " This book contains a short
account of a number of Scotch authors; but Dempster
was so exceedingly desirous of increasing his catalogue
that he makes Scotchmen of many writers who were cer
tainly born in other countries. // crut, says a French
writer, faire honneur a sa patrie, enfaisant naltre dans son
sein une foule d'ecrivains etr angers, & il s'en jit tres peu d
lui-meme. (Nouv. Diet. Historique, article Dempster)."
B. " Although displaying great industry, the book is
chiefly remarkable for its extraordinary dishonesty."
Henry Bradley, Dictionary National Biography, article
" Dempster."

T

290 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

7. De Scriptoribus Hiberniae : Sir James Ware. Dublin,
1639. " His lives are short, and confined to authors born
or preferred in Ireland. He begins with the introduction
of Christianity in that kingdom, and ends with the six
teenth century. Such circumstances as he was able to
collect he relates impartially and seldom gives any character
of his authors or their writings." B.

8. Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Historia Liter aria, a
Christo Nato usque ad Saeculum XIV . Facili methodo
digesta. Qua de vita illorum ac rebus gestis, de Secta, Dog-
matibus, Elogis, Stylo ; de Scriptis genuinis, dubiis, sup-
posititiis, ineditis, desperditis, fragmentis ; deque variis
operum Editionibus perspicue agitur. Accedunt Scriptoris
Gentiles, Christianae Religionis oppugnatores ; et cujusvis
Saeculi Breviarum : William Cave, 1688; (Pars Alt era),
1698. The work extends only to the beginning of the
fourteenth century. Later, Henry Wharton and Robert
Gery continued it to 1517. More reliable than the works
of Bale and Pits, yet poor when measured by present-day
standards.

9. Bibliotheca Britannico-Hibernica : Thomas Tanner,
1748. " It was the elaborate work of forty years' applica
tion. His lives of authors are taken chiefly from Leland,
Bale, and Pits; the first of whom he constantly transcribes
verbatim. We are, however, much obliged to his lord
ship for adding to the life of each author a much more
accurate list of works than is to be found in any pre
ceding biographer." B. " On all questions connected
with the early literature of our nation, Tanner's Biblio-
theca, notwithstanding its many omissions, defects, and
redundancies, is still the highest authority to which the
inquirer can refer. As a storehouse of historical materials,
it is invaluable; although the vast information contained
in it is badly arranged and requires a careful and critical
revision." Hardy, Descriptive Catalogue, Preface, p. xlii.

APPENDIX 291

II

BIOGRAPHICAL COMPILATIONS IN
ENGLISH

(To the end of the Eighteenth Century)

1. Abel Redevivus : or the dead yet speaking. The Lives
and Deaths of the Moderne Divines. Written by severall
able and learned men (whose names ye shall finde in the
Epistle to the Reader). And now digested into one Volume,
for the benefit and satisfaction of all those that desire to be
acquainted with the Paths of Piety and Virtue. Prov. 10. 7.
The memory of the just is blessed, but the name of the wicked
shall rot. 1651. [Thomas Fuller.] "The chief merit
of this book is its being the first biographical volume
published in the English language: at least, I know of
none of an earlier date." B.

2. The History of the Worthies of England. Endeavoured
by Thomas Fuller, D.D. 1662. " His accounts of authors
are generally taken from Bale and Pits; but the doctor's
natural propensity to be witty was so exceedingly prevalent
that he constantly seems to wish rather to make his
readers merry than wise." B.

3. Theatrum Poetarum, or a compleat collection of the
Poets, especially the most eminent of all ages, the Ancients
distinguish^ from the Moderns in their several alphabets.
With some observations and reflections upon many of them,
particularly those of our own nation. Together with a prefatory
discourse of the Poets and Poetry in General. By Edward
Phillips. 1675. " It is a small volume, containing a
short account of ancient and modern poets in general,
among which there are some Englishmen." B.

4. The Lives of Sundry Eminent Persons in this Later
Age. In two parts : I. Of Divines. II. Of Nobility and

292 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

Gentry of both Sexes. By Samuel Clark, Sometimes Pastor
of Sennet Fink, London. 1683.

5. The Lives of the most Famous English Poets, or the
Honour of Parnassus ; in a Brief Essay of the Works and
Writings of above Two Hundred of them, from the Time of
K. William the Conqueror, to the Reign of His Present
Majesty King James II. By William Winstanley. 1687.

6. Athenae Oxonienses. An Exact History of all the
Writers and Bishops who have had their Education in the
most antient and Famous University of Oxford, from the
Fifteenth Tear of King Henry the Seventh, An. Dom. t i$oo,
to the End of the Tear 1690. Representing the Birth, Fortune,
Preferment, and Death of all those Authors and Prelates, the
great Accidents of their Lives, and the Fate and Character
of their Writings. To which are added, the Fasti, or annals
of the said University, for the same time. [By Anthony
Wood, M.A.] 1691. "The work was first begun in the
Latine tongue, and for some time continued on in the same,
but upon the desire of a worthy person (now dead) who was
an encourager thereof, it was thought more useful to
publish, as you will now find it, in an honest plain English
dress, without flourishes, or affectation of stile, as best
becomes a history of truth and matter of fact. It is the
first of its nature, I believe, that has ever been printed in
our own, or any other, mother tongue: for tho* several
authors (particularly Ant. du Ferdier, a Frenchman) have
written histories or descriptions of illustrious men of their
respective countries in their own language, eminent as
well for the sword as pen, yet that of Verdier, and all of
the like subject are different from this present triple variety,
written for the most part in the nature of a Bibliotheque ;
which, I presume, no person, as yet, hath done the like,
in his native tongue." From Wood's " To the Reader."
" His manner is cynical, his language antiquated, and his
civil and religious opinions illiberal." B.

APPENDIX 293

7. An Account of the English Dramatick Poets : or, Some
observations and Remarks on the Lives and Writings of all
those that have Published either Comedies, Tragedies, Tragi-
Comedies, Pastorals, Masques, Interludes, Farces, or Opera's
in the English Tongue. By Gerard Langbaine. 1691.

8. De Re Poetica : or, Remarks upon Poetry. With
Characters and Censures of the most Considerable Poets,
whether Ancient or Modern. Extracted out of the best and
choicest criticks. By Sir Thomas Pope Blount. 1694. A
compilation of very little biographical value.

9. The Lives and Characters of the English Dramatick
Poets. Also an Exact Account of all the Plays that were
ever yet Printed in the English Tongue ; their Double Titles,
the Places where Acted, the Dates when Printed, and the
Persons to whom Dedicated ; with Remarks and Observations
on most of the said Plays. First begun by Mr. Langbain,
improved and continued down to this time by a Careful Hand.
[Charles Gildon (1665-1724)] [1698].

10. The Great Historical, Geographical, Genealogical, and
Poetical Dictionary. . . . Collected . . . more especially out
of Lewis Morery, D.D., his Eighth Edition Corrected and
Enlarged by Monsieur Le Clerc . . . to which are added, by
way of Supplement, intermixed throughout the Alphabet, the
Lives, most Remarkable Actions, and Writings of several
Illustrious Families of our English, Scotch, and Irish
Nobility, and Gentry. . . . Revised, Corrected, and En
larged to the Tear 1688 ; By Jer. Collier, A.M. 1701. Two
volumes.

1 1 . The Poetical Register : or, the Lives and Characters
of the English Dramatick Poets. With an Account of their
Writings. [Giles Jacob.] 1719. " The foundation of the
work is owing to Mr. Langbain, who was the first that

294 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

brought these memoirs into any tolerable form. ... As
to the accounts of the living authors, most of them came
from their own hands, excepting such parts as relate to
the fame of their writings, where I thought myself at
liberty to give such characters of praise or dispraise as the
best judges before me had passed upon their performances."
From the " Preface." " They [the works of Winstanley,
Langbaine, Gildon, and Jacob] are generally transcripts
from each other and are all trifling performances. They
have been since absorbed in Gibber's Lives of the Poets."
B.

12. Biographia Britannic a : or, the Lives of the most
eminent persons who have flourished in Great Britain and
Ireland, from the earliest ages down to the present times :
collected from the best authorities, both printed and manu
script, and digested in the manner of Mr. Bayle's Historical
and Critical Dictionary. London, 1747.

" It was with this view that the Biographia Britannic a
was undertaken; it was in order to collect into one body,
without any restriction of time or place, profession or
condition, the memoirs of such of our countrymen as have
been eminent, and by their performances of any kind
deserve to be remembered. We judged that this would
be a most useful service to the publick, a kind of general
monument erected to the most deserving of all ages, an
expression of gratitude due to their services, and the most
probable means of exciting, in succeeding times, a spirit
of emulation which might prompt men to an imitation
of their virtues. This was the first and great motive to
the attempting such a collection, towards which, indeed,
we saw that there were considerable materials ready pre
pared, though no sign of any such buildings being ever
traced, or that there had ever been a thought, either as
to the expediency or possibility of erecting such a struc
ture: a British Temple of Honour, sacred to the piety,
learning, valour, publick-spirit, loyalty, and every other

APPENDIX 295

glorious virtue of our ancestors, and ready also for the
reception of the worthies of our own time, and the heroes
of posterity." Preface, p. viii.

" It was compiled with great labour, and full of copious
and exact details; but commonly dull, without force of
character, and without adequate discrimination. The
plan, which is that of Bayle, is not altogether the best.
The notes make a perpetual impediment to reading the
narrative consecutively, and render it more fit to be con
sulted as a dictionary than as a work of amusement. The
form is like Bayle's, but not the spirit. Scarce any article
rises above mere compilation." Egerton Brydges, Auto
biography, vol. i. p. 99.

13. The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland
to the 'Time of Dean Swift. Compiled from ample materials
scattered in a variety of books, and especially from the MS.
notes of the late ingenious Mr. Coxeter and others, collected
for this design, by Mr. [Tbeopbilus] Gibber. In four
volumes. 1753. [The title-pages of vols. ii., iii., iv., and
v. read " By Mr. Gibber, and other hands."]

" It was undertaken on the foundation of a copy of
Langbain's Lives, which was bought at the sale of Coxeter's
books. ... It is, to say no worse of it, an insignificant
performance." B

14. A Catalogue of the Royal and Noble Authors of Eng
land, with Lists of their Works. [Horace Walpole.] Printed
at Strawberry Hill. 1758.

" The matter it contains is curious and important; the
language polished, nervous, and pointed; the sentiments
impartial, liberal, noble." B.

15. Ike Biographical Dictionary. 1761. Twelve volumes.
" Whatsoever degree of merit there may be in this

compilation, it seems due to the booksellers, who appear
frequently to have used printed copies of former publica-

296 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

tions, without the assistance of an author, or even a
transcriber." B.

1 6. Companion to the Playhouse. 1764. Two volumes.
". . . contains a better and more comprehensive

account of our dramatic poets and their works, than any
other book in the English language [to 1/77]." B.

17. Biographia Liter aria ; or a Bio * graphical History of
Literature : containing the Lives of English, Scottish, and
Irish authors from the Dawn of letters in these Kingdoms to
the present time, chronologically and classically arranged.
[John Berkenhout, M.D. 1777.] Only vol. i. (from the
beginning of the fifth to the end of the sixteenth century)
was issued.

The work is of no great intrinsic merit. It is chiefly
of interest because of the remarks made by Dr. Berkenhout
upon previous biographical compilations. Where these
have seemed just and to the point, they have been quoted
in the present volume, and marked " B." This much of
Berkenhout's labour deserves preservation.

Ill

ENGLISH AUTOBIOGRAPHIES

These lists are adapted, with corrections, by kind per
mission, from Burr's >( Ihe Autobiography. N.B. To place
an autobiographer in correct chronology, it is obvious that
the date given must be that of his death. Yet it often
happens that a man may cover a certain era in his auto
biography, and be therein connected with a certain group,
and then live so many years after writing it that the date
of his death, taken by itself, would seem to connect him
with a wholly different epoch. Where two dates are given,
the second is that of the publication of the autobiography.

APPENDIX 297

LIST I. (CONTAINING GROUPS i, 2, AND 3)

Our first four names are those of writers whose auto
biographies are brief, mere terse accounts of events domestic
or political:

died

Thomas Tusser .... 1580
Sir Thomas Bodley . . .1613
Richard Vennar . . . . 1615 (?)
Lucy Hutchinson . after 1675

In twenty-five years more we find a group of detailed
and subjective self-studies (*), of which Blair and his
friends are definitely religious. This is a group entirely
apart from the Quakers. Those marked (f) are of political
and objective chroniclers merely. Note that out of
eighteen autobiographies, but eight deserve to be termed
self-studies. Groups I, 2, and 3 are determined partly
by date, partly by a certain family likeness in style:

GROUP r

died

Margaret of Newcastle . . 1674

Lord Herbert of Cherbury . . 1648

Simonds D'Ewes . . . 1650

Sir Kenelm Digby . . . 1665

*Robert Blair .... 1666

fLord Clarendon .... 1674

*James Fraser of Brae . . . 1699

John Livingstone . . . 1672

GROUP 2

Walter Pringle .... 1667

Lady Fanshawe . . . 1680

William Lilly .... 1681

tLord Shaft esbury . . .1683

298 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

GROUP 3

t James Melvill .... 1617 (1683)

tSir John Reresby . . . 1689
*Richard Baxter . . . .1691

tjohn Bramston .... 1700

Anne, Lady Halkett . . . 1699

*John Bunyan .... 1688

LIST II. ("CONSISTING OF GROUP 4, ENGLISH QUAKERS)

GROUP 4

The English Quakers here listed form a continuous
and compact group, running steadily, without variation
in manner or method, as late as 1840:

Seventeenth Century ^ ^

John Audland .... 1663

Samuel Fisher .... 1665

Richard Farnsworth . . . 1666

William Caton .... 1665

John Crook . . . . 1699

Stephen Crisp .... 1694

Edward Burroughs . . . 1662

James Parnel .... 1656

Isaac Pennington . . . 1679

Alexander Jaffray . . . 1673

William Dewsbury . . . 1688

Charles Marshall. . . . 1698

Francis Howgill .... 1669

George Fox .... 1691
Dr. John Rutty ....
William Evans ....

Alice Ellis

John Wibur ....

APPENDIX 299

Eighteenth Century ^ g ^

Gilbert Latey . . . .1705
Elizabeth Stirredge . . . 1706
Alice Hayes .... 1720
Margaret Fox .... 1702
Richard Claridge . . .1723
Richard Da vies .... 1708
Thomas Ell wood . . .1713
John Banks .... 1710
William Edmundson . . . 1712
Christopher Story . . . 1720
George Whitehead . . . 1723
Thomas Story .... 1742
Samuel Bownas .... 1753
James Dickinson . . . 1741
John Woolman .... 1772
Thomas Chalkley . . .1741
Elizabeth Ashbridge . . . 1775

Job Scott 1793

James Gough .... 1712
Oliver Sansom . . . .1710

Nineteenth Century

Jane Pearson . . . .1816
Abraham Shackleton . . .1818
Henry Hull .... 1834
Thomas Shillitoe . . . 1836
Daniel Wheeler . . . .1840

LIST III. (CONTAINING GROUPS 5 AND 6)

Contemporaneous with List II. (Group 4) is the first
small group of genuinely scientific self-students (*). Seven
names are similar in idea and in method, of whom the
greatest is Franklin. Of the remaining names, we find

300 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

four writing religious confessions wholly independent as
to creed (f):

Gilbert Burnet . . . .

John Flamsteed . . . .1719

William Taswell . . . .1731

*Edmund Calamy . . .1732

+John Dunton . . . -1733

Roger North . 1734

t William Whiston . . .1752

Colley Gibber . . . .1757

Charlotte Charke . . . 1760 (?)

George Psalmanazar . . . 1763

David Hume .... 1776

Thomas Newton. . . .1782

Benjamin Franklin . . . 1790

Mary Robinson .... 1800

Edward Gibbon .... 1794

Theobald Wolfe Tone . . .1798

William Henry Ireland . . 1835

Joseph Priestley. . . . 1804

tGeorge Whitefield . . . 1770

tHenry Alline .... 1784

LIST IV. (CONTAINING GROUPS 7 AND 8)

Imitators of Franklin and of Gibbon (*) form a defined
Group from 1809 to 1826. There is also a subsidiary
Group (f) of literary self-analysers, religious and intro
spective in tone. Out of twenty -eight names, twenty
are strongly subjective, approaching the zenith of self-
study in English. The List covers about fifty years:

died

Thomas Holcroft . . . 1809

Richard Cumberland . . .1811

William Hutton . . . .1815

Richard Edgeworth . . . 1817

APPENDIX 301

died

* James Lackington . . . 1815
Samuel Romilly .... 1818
tWilliam Hayley . . . .1820

Arthur Young .... 1820
Catherine Cappe. . . . 1821
Thomas Bewick . . . .1828
William Gifford . . . .1826

Alexander Carlyle . . . 1805 (1860)

Walter Scott . . . .1832
tEgerton Brydges . . . 1837
tjohn Gait 1839

James Hogg .... 1835

Robert Burns .... 1796
tSir Capell Lofft . . . .1824
tjoseph Blanco White . . . 1841

Robert Southey . . . .1843
fBenjamin Robert Haydon . . 1846
Samuel Roberts . . . .1848
tWilliam Wordsworth . . . 1850
fLeigh Hunt .... 1859

Thomas De Quincey . . . 1859
Ann Gilbert . ' . . .1866
tSamuel T. Coleridge . . .1834
Robert and William Chambers . 1871-83

LIST V. (CONSISTING OF GROUP 9, THE SCIENTIFIC,
1850-1900)

A clearly defined contemporary Group:
Charles Darwin Charles Bray

Thomas Henry Huxley Harriet Martineau

Alexander Bain Frances Power Cobbe

Herbert Spencer Mark Pattison

John Stuart Mill Edmund Gosse

Alfred Russel Wallace George John Romanes

Charles Babbage (Diary)

Frederic Harrison

302

ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

LIST VI. (MISCELLANEOUS, 1850-1900)

The only cluster approaching a Group is the Literary-
Artistic formed about the Pre-Raphaelite movement (*).
Important subjective cases are marked (t):

Anthony W. Trollop e

fAnnie Besant
Walter Besant
Lord Brougham
Lord Campbell
Mrs. Eliza Fletcher
William Powell Frith

tElizabeth Grant

fAugustus J. C. Hare

*W. Holman Hunt
Henry Layard
Col. Meadows Taylor
Lord Roberts
F. Locker-Lampson
William C. Macready

fCardinal Newman

*W. M. Rossetti

fMargaret O. W. Oliphant

*J. Addington Symonds

Zerah Colburn

Lady Morgan

George Harris
*George Moore

Ulysses S. Grant

Andrew White
*John Ruskin

Samuel Smiles

Lord Wolseley
fF. W. Newman

John Freeman Clarke

Louis Agassiz

Mrs. Charles Bagot
tjohn Beattie Crozier
tC. G. Finney
fPhilip Gilbert Hamerton

IV
SHAKESPEARE IN BIOGRAPHY

I. The first attempt to write a biography of Shakespeare
was made by Thomas Fuller. The following is the text as
printed in the Worthies of England, 1662:

" William Shakespeare was born at Stratford-on-Avon in this
[Warwick] county; in whom three eminent poets may seem in some
sort to be compounded, i. Martial, in the warlike sound of his
surname (whence some may conjecture him of a military extraction)
Hasti-vibrans or Shake-speare. 2. Ovid, the most natural and witty

APPENDIX 303

of all poets; and hence it was that Queen Elizabeth, coming into a
grammar school, made this extempory verse:

' Persius a crab-staff, Bawdy Martial, Ovid a fine wag.'

3. Plautus, who was an exact comedian, yet never any scholar, as our
Shakespeare (if alive) would confess himself. Add to all these, that
though his genius generally was jocular, and inclining him to festi
vity, yet he could (when so disposed) be solemn and serious, as
appears by his tragedies; so that Heraclitus himself (I mean if secret
and unseen) might afford to smile at his comedies, they were so
merry ; and Democritus scarce forbear to sigh at his tragedies, they
were so mournful. He was an eminent instance of the truth of the
rule, Poeta non fit, sed nascitur ; one is not made but born a poet.
Indeed his learning was very little, so that, as Cornish diamonds are
not polished by any lapidary, but are pointed and smoothed even as
they are taken out of the earth, so Nature itself was all the art which
was used upon him. Many were the wit-combats betwixt him and
Ben Jonson; which two I beheld like a Spanish great galleon and
an English man of war: Master Jonson (like the former) was built
far higher in learning; solid but slow in his performances, Shake
speare, with the English man of war, lesser in bulk, but lighter in
sailing, could turn with all tides, tack about, and take advantage
of all winds, by the quickness of his wit and invention. He died anno
Domini 16 , and was buried at Stratford upon Avon, the town of
his nativity."

2. Next in order is the sketch by John Aubrey. The
text is that of Clark's Aubrey's " Brief Lives" vol. ii.
pp. 225-27:

" Mr. William Shakespear was borne at Stratford upon Avon in
the county of Warwick. His father was a butcher, and I have been
told heretofore by some of the neighbours, that when he was a boy
he exercised his father's trade, but when he kill'd a calfe he would doe
it in a high style, and make a speech. There was at that time another
butcher's son in this towne that was held not at all inferior to him
for a naturall witt, his acquaintance and coetanean, but dyed young.

" This William being inclined naturally to poetry and acting, came
to London, I guesse, about 18 ; and was an actor at one of the play
houses, and did act exceedingly well (now B. Johnson was never a
good actor, but an excellent instructor).

" He began early to make essayes at dramatique poetry, which at
that time was very lowe; and his playes tooke well.

304 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

" He was a handsome, well-shap't man; very good company, and of
a very readie and pleasant smooth witt.

"The humour of ... the constable, in Midsomernight' s Dreame,
he happened to take at Grendon in Bucks I thinke it was Mid-
somer night that he happened to lye there which is the roade from
London to Stratford, and there was living that constable about 1642,
when I first came to Oxon: Mr. Josias Howe is of that parish, and
knew him. Ben Johnson and he did gather humours of men dayly
where ever they came. One night as he was at the tavern at Stratford
super Avon, one Combes, an old rich userer, was to be buryed, he
makes there this extemporary epitaph:

Ten in the hundred the Devill allowes,

But Combes will have twelve, he sweares and vowes:

If any one askes who lies in this tombe,

' Hoh! ' quoth the Devill, ' 'Tis my John o Combe.'

" He was wont to goe to his native couatrey once a yeare. I thinke
1 have been told that he left 2 or 300 /. per annum there and there
about to a sister. Vide his epitaph in Dugdale's Warwickshire.

" I have heard Sir William Davcnant and Mr. Thomas Shad well
(who is counted the best comoedian we have now) say that he had
a most prodigious witt, and did admire his naturall parts beyond
all other dramaticall writers. He was wont to say (B. Johnson's
Underwoods) that he ' never blotted out a line in his life ' ; sayd
Ben: Johnson, ' I wish he had blotted-out a thousand.'

" His comoedies will remaine witt as long as the English tongue is
understood, for that he handles mores hominum. Now our present
writers reflect so much upon particular persons and coxcombeities,
that twenty yeares hence they will not be understood.

"Though, as Ben: Johnson sayes of him, that he had but little
Latine and lesse Greek he understood Latine pretty well, for he had
been in his younger yeares a schoolmaster in the countrey. from
Mr. ... Beeston."

3. We may next examine the sketch in Langbaine's
English Dramatic Poets, 1691. It will be noticed that
Langbaine's sketch follows closely that by Fuller. The
date of Shakespeare's death is supplied, together with a
few additional facts. The portions which constitute a
criticism and an enumeration of the plays are omitted, as
not strictly relevant to our purpose:

APPENDIX 305

" William SHAKESPEAR. One of the most Eminent Poets of his
Time; he was born at Stratford upon Avon in Warwickshire ; and
flourished in the Reigns of Queen Elizabeth and King James the First.
His Natural Genius to Poetry was so excellent, that like those Dia
monds, which are found in Cornwall, Nature had little, or no occasion
for the Assistance of Art to polish it. The Truth is, 'tis agreed on by
most, that his Learning was not extraordinary; and I am apt to
believe that his skill in the French and Italian tongues, exceeded his
knowledge in the Roman language. ... I have now no more to do,
but to close up all, with an Account of his Death; which was on the
2 jd of April, Anno Dom. 1616. He lyeth Buried in the Great Church
in Stratford upon Avon with his Wife and Daughter Susanna, the
Wife of Mr. John Hall. In the North Wall of the Chancel, is a
Monument fixed which represents his true Effigies, leaning upon a
cushion. . . ."

4. The next really important advance was that made
by Nicholas Rowe in his Some Account of the Life, $3c. y of
Mr. William Shakespeare, prefixed to the edition of the
Plays, 1709. This is now easily accessible in D. Nichol
Smith's Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare. James
MacLehose and Sons, Glasgow, Publishers.

5. As an example of the manner in which high-flown
phraseology was used to conceal lack of information, we
give the first part of the sketch from Gibber's Lives of the
Poets, vol. i. pp. 123-24. The remainder simply adapts
information already known:

" There have been some ages in which providence seemed pleased
in a most remarkable manner to display itself, in giving to the world
the finest genius's to illuminate a people formerly barbarous. After
a long night of Gothic ignorance, after many ages of priestcraft and
superstition, learning and genius visited our Island in the days of
renowned Queen Elizabeth. It was then that liberty began to dawn,
and the people having shook off the restraints of priestly austerity,
presumed to think for themselves. At an Aera so remarkable as this,
so famous in history, it seems no wonder that the nation should be
blessed with those immortal ornaments of wit and learning, who all
conspired at once to make it famous. This astonishing genius
seemed to be commissioned from above to deliver us not only from
the ignorance under which we laboured as to poetry, but to carry
poetry almost to its perfection. But to write a panegyric on Shake-

U

306 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

spear appears as unnecessary as the attempt would be vain; for
whoever has any taste for what is great, terrible, or tender, may
meet with the amplest gratification in Shakespear; as may those also
have a taste for drollery and true humour. His genius was almost
boundless, and he succeeded alike in every part of writing. . . .

All men have discovered a curiosity to know the little stories and
particularities of a great genius; for it often happens that when we
attend a man to his closet and watch his moments of solitude, we
shall find such expressions drop from him, or we may observe such
instances of peculiar conduct, as will let us more into his real charac
ter than ever we can discover while we converse with him in publick,
and when perhaps he appears under a kind of mask. There are but
few things known of this great man; few incidents of his life have
descended to posterity, and tho' no doubt the fame of his abilities
made a great noise in the age in which he flourished, yet his station
was not such as to produce many incidents, as it was subject to but
few vicissitudes. Mr. Rowe, who well understood and greatly ad
mired Shakespear, has been at pains to collect what incidents were
known, or were to be found concerning him, and it is chiefly upon
Mr. Rowe's authority we build the account now given. ..."

6. The sketch which appeared in the Biographia
Britannic a is not generally accessible. It is worth while
to reprint it as summarising the knowledge in regard to
Shakespeare to the date of its publication, as well as show
ing the state of biographical dictionaries at that time.
The text is taken from the first edition of vol. vi. part i.
pp. 3627-39; its date, 1763. The text is given in full;
the footnotes, which are highly interesting, but unnecessary
for our purpose, are omitted: they refer to all preceding
published accounts:

" Shakespeare [William] was descended of a gentleman's family,
at Stratford upon Avon, in the county of Warwick; but his father
entering into the wool-trade, dealt considerably that way. He
married the daughter and one of the heirs of Robert Arden, of
Wellingcote in the same county. This gentlewoman brought him ten
children, of whom our poet was the eldest, being born in April 1564.
At a proper age he was put to the free-school in Stratford, where
he acquired the rudiments of Grammar-learning. Whether he dis
covered at this time any extraordinary genius or inclination for the

APPENDIX 307

Classics, is very uncertain; to make the best of any, he might be
endued with, in that kind, was not the point in his father's view. He
had no design to make a scholar of his son, but, on the contrary, took
him early from school into his own business. He did not continue
very long in this employ, as a minor, under the immediate guidance
of his father; he resolved to write man sooner than ordinary, and
at seventeen years of age married a woman of twenty-five. However,
in respect to fortune, it was no imprudent match; and thus young
Shakespeare not only commenced master of a family, but became
father of two if not three children, before he was out of his minority.
So settled, he had no other thoughts than of pursuing the wool -trade,
when happening to fall into acquaintance with some persons, who
followed the practice of deer-stealing, he was prevailed upon to
engage with them in robbing Sir Thomas Lucy's park, at Cherlcot
near Stratford. The injury being repeated more than once, that
gentleman was provoked to enter a prosecution against the delin
quents; and Shakespeare in revenge made him the subject of a
ballad, which tradition says (for unluckily the piece is lost) was
pointed with so much bitterness, that it became unsafe for the
author to stay any longer in the country. To escape the hands of the
Law, he fled to London, where, as might be expected from a man of
wit and humour in his circumstances, he threw himself among the
players. Thus, at length, this grand luminary was driven, by a very
untoward accident, into his genuine and proper sphere of shining in
the universe. His first admission into the play-house was suitable to
his appearance; a stranger, unacquainted and uninformed in this
art, he was glad to be taken into the company in a very mean rank.
Neither did his performance recommend him to any distinguished
notice. The part of an actor neither engaged nor deserved his
attention; it was very far from filling, or being adequate to, the
prodigious powers of his mind : he turned the advantage which that
situation afforded him, to a higher and nobler use; and having, by
practice and observation, acquainted himself with the mechanical
part of the theatre, his native genius inspired all the other most
essentially superior qualities of a play-wright. But the whole view
of this first attempt in stage-poetry being to procure a subsistence,
he directed his endeavours solely to hit the taste and humour that
then prevailed amongst the meaner sort of people, of whom the
audience was generally composed; and therefore his images of life
were drawn from those of that rank. These had no notion of the
rules of writing, or the model of the Ancients. Shakespeare also set
out without the advantage of education, and without the advice or
assistance of the learned; equally without the patronage of the

U 2

3o8 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

better sort, as without any acquaintance among them. But when his
performances had merited the protection of his Prince, and the
encouragement of the Court had succeeded to that of the Town, the
works of his riper years are manifestly raised above those of his
former. The dates of his plays sufficiently evidence, that his produc
tions improved, in proportion to the respect he had for his auditors.
In this way of writing he was an absolute original, and of such a
peculiar cast, as hath perpetually raised and confounded the emula
tion of his successors; a compound of such very singular blemishes
as well as beauties, that these latter have not more mocked the toil
of every aspiring undertaker to emulate them than the former, as
flaws intimately united to the diamonds, have baffled every attempt
of the cunningest artists to take them out, without spoiling the whole.
Queen Elizabeth, who shewed Shakespeare many marks of her
favour, was so much pleased with the delightful character of Sir
John Falstaff, in the two parts of Henry IV. that she commanded
the author to continue it for one play more, and to shew the Knight
in love, which he executed inimitably in The Merry Wives of Windsor.
Among his other patrons, the Earl of Southampton is particularly
honoured by him, in the dedications of two poems, Venus and
A donis, and Lucrece ; in the latter especially he expresses himself in
such terms, as gives countenance to what is related of that patron's
distinguished generosity to him. In the beginning of King James
the First's reign (if not sooner) he was one of the principal managers
of the play-house, and continued in it several years afterwards ; till
having acquired such a fortune as satisfied his moderate wishes and
views in life, he quitted the stage, and all other business, and passed
the remainder of his time in an honourable ease, among the conversa
tion of his friends, at his native town of Stratford, with the gentlemen
of the neighbourhood, to whom his pleasurable and good nature
rendered him very agreeable. He lived in a very handsome house of
his own purchasing to which he gave the name of New Place; and
he had the good fortune to save it from flames, in the dreadful
fire that consumed the greatest part of the town, in 1614. It is very
probable, he did not much exercise his talent in poetry, after^his
retirement. In the beginning of the year 1616 he made his Will,
wherein he testified his respect to his quondam partners in the
theatre; he appointed his youngest daughter, jointly with her
husband, his executors, and bequeathed to them the best part of his
estate, which they came into the possession of not long after. He
died on the 23d of April following, being the fifty-third year of his
age, and was interred among his ancestors, on the north side of the
Chancel, in the great church of Stratford, where there is a handsome

APPENDIX 309

monument erected for him, inscribed with a simple elegiac distich in
Latin. In the year 1740, another noble and most beautiful one was
raised to his memory, at the public expence, in Westminster abbey;
an ample contribution for this purpose being made, upon exhibiting
his tragedy of Julius Caesar at the theatre-royal in Drury Lane,
April the 28th, 1738. Seven years after his death, his plays were
collected and published in 1623, in folio, by two of his principal
friends in the company of comedians, Heninge and Condale; who
likewise corrected a second edition in folio, in 1632. Though both
these editions were extremely faulty, yet no other was attempted
till 1714, when a third edition was published in 8vo by Mr.
Nicholas Rowe, but with few if any corrections; only he prefixed
some account of our author's life and writings, the materials of the
first of which were communicated to him by Mr. Betterton, the
celebrated Comedian, who made a journey to Stratford, purposely
to learn something further concerning a man, to whom both he and
all the world were so much indebted. But the plays being in the same
mangled condition as at first, Mr. Pope was prevailed upon to under
take the task of clearing away the rubbish, and reducing them into a
better order; and accordingly he printed a new edition of them in
1721, in 4to. Yet neither did this give satisfaction, and the perform
ance only discovered the editor to be a better poet than he was a
critic; at least of Shakespeare's genius. Hereupon Mr. Theobald,
after many years spent in the same task, published a piece called
Shakespeare restored, in 1726, in 8vo, which was followed by
another new edition of his plays in 1733, by the same author,
who therein carried the design of his first piece much farther.
In 1744, Sir Thomas Hanmer, Bart., published at Oxford a
pompous edition, with emendations, in six volumes, 4to. To these
Mr. Warburton, now Lord Bishop of Gloucester, added still another
new edition, with a great number of corrections, in 1747. And Mr.
Theobald published his edition a second time, with several altera
tions, in 1757. There has appeared very lately this year, 1760, an
historical play, intituled, The Raigne of Edward the Third, 6-c.,
which is ascribed to Shakespeare upon these three concurring circum
stances, the date, the stile, and the plan, which is taken, as several
of Shakespeare's are, from Holingshead, and a book of novels, called
The Palace of Pleasure. Thus new monuments are continually rising
to honour Shakespeare's genius in the learned world; and we must
not conclude, without adding another testimony of the veneration
paid to his manes by the publick in general: which is, that a mul
berry-tree, planted upon his estate by the hands of this revered bard,
was cut down not many years ago, and the wood being converted

310 ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

into several domestic uses, these were all eagerly bought at a high
price, and each single one treasured up by its purchaser as a precious
memorial of Shakespeare's memory."

7. With the preceding, the reader will find interest in
comparing the latest and best attempt, that of Sir Sidney
Lee in his A Life of William Shakespeare, 1898; new and
revised edition, 1915. In the Appendix to his work, Mr.
Lee gives a list of all available sources which throw light
on the life of Shakespeare.

The nineteenth century was rich in biographical dic
tionaries. The culmination of such works was, of course,
the Dictionary of National Biography. Maitland, in the
Life and Letters of Leslie Stephen, p. 365, cites the follow
ing estimate of the D. N. B., from Ch. Petit-Dutaillis'
Revue de Synthese historique (1904), p. 360: " Ni notre
Biographie universelle, ni notre Biographie generale ni les
articles fort inegaux de notre Grande Encyclopedic ne
peuvent tre compares a ce monument d' erudition generale-
ment tres sure."

For a complete list (to the date of its publication) of
all biographical compilations in the English language,
consult The Dictionary of Biographical Reference . . .
together with a Classed Index of the Biographical Literature
of Europe and America. By Lawrence B. Phillips. London,
1871. See also A Handbook to the Literature of General
Biography. By Edward Edwards and Charles Hole. 1885.

No complete bibliography of English biography has ever
been made. It is a question whether such a bibliography
would be practicable, containing, as it would, hundreds of
well-nigh worthless narratives. For a brief bibliography
of selected biography consult Thomas Nelson and Sons'
Standard Books.

INDEX

INDEX

A eta Sanctorum, 248

Adam, Abbot of Eynsham, Mag-
na Vita St. Hugonis, 22-25, 2 7

Adamnan, xii, 241, 265; Life of
St. Columba, xix, 3-5, 236, 266

Addison, Joseph, on Grub Street
biographers, 83-84, 85; his
style, 92; on contemporary
biography, 118

Aelf ric, 1 1 ; Lives of Saints, 30

Aitken, George A., Life of Steele,
no, 186

Alan of Tewkesbury, Life of
Becket, 22

Alfieri, 259, 260

Allen, A. V. G., Life of Brooks,
179-80, 235, 262, 271

Amyot, Jacques, and Plutarch,
243. 285

Andersen, Hans, 261

Anderson, Dr. Robert,Lt/ieo//oA-
son, concerning Boswell, 121-23

Appleton's Cyclopedia of Ameri
can Biography, 195

Armagh, Book of, 5, 6

Asser of St. David's, Life of King
Alfred, 2, 11-14, 15-16; 113

" Astronomer," The, Life of
Ludwig, 1 6

Athanaeus, 245

Athanasius, Life of St. Anthony,
241

Aubrey, John, 39, 117; as a bio
grapher, 59-61; his Brief
Lives, 59-60, 81; letters to
Anthony Wood, 60, 81, 124;
and coffee-houses, 59, 81, 82;
and James Boswell, 61, 124

Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, 254,
258; Confessions, 141, 254-56

Autobiography, first use of word,
130-31; first English, 132-33;
delayed publication of early
documents, 1 39-40 ; culmina

tion of in eighteenth century,
156; culmination in Herbert
Spencer, 204; influence on
biography, 130, 156, 157 ff.;
different from biography, xvi-
xvii, 200 ; early manifestations
of, 251 ff. ; objective, 252;
subjective, 256 ff. ; limitations
of, 282-84; lists of in English,
296-302

Ayre, William, Life of Pope, 87;
quoted, 87-88

Bacon, Francis, laments scarcity
of lives in Advancement of
Learning, 67-68 ; Life of King
Henry VII., 68; 77, 157

Bailey, Nathan, English Die-
tionary, definitions of bio
graphy, 103

Baker, David Erskine, Com
panion to the Playhouse, 57, 296

Bale, John, 47, 48, 49, 52, 267,
288, 289, 291 ; Quarles' verses
on, 288; his Dedication of
Leyland's Laboryouse Journey,
quoted, 50; his Illustrium
Majoris Britanniae Scriptorum
Summarium, 247, 288; his
Index of British Writers, 288

Bauer, Karoline, 261

Baxter, Richard, Reliquiae Box-
terianae, 144-46, 149, 298

Bayle, Pierre, 247

Becket, Thomas, Archbishop of
Canterbury, 22

Bede, The Venerable, n, 17, 20,
267 ; anonymous life of, 15, 24;
Ecclesiastical History of Eng
land, 7, 8, 9, 15, 132, 251; his
autobiography, 132-33. 251;
Life of St. Cuthbert (in prose).
8-1 1, 15, (in Latin verse), 8, 29;
Lives of the Abbots, 8, 267

ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

Benson, A. C., Life of E. W.

Benson, 219
Beowulf, 131
Berkenhout, Dr. John, Bio-

graphia Literaria, 57, 296;

quoted, 94, 287-96
Bielschowsky, Dr. Albert, Life

of Goethe, 187-88
Bigelow, John, editor Franklin's

Autobiography, 152
BiographiaBritannica, 57, 58, 195,

294-95; quoted, 94-95. 294-95
Biographical Dictionary (1761),

57. 295-96
Biographic Universelle, 247,

250-51

Biography, inception of and
general line of development,
xiii-xiv; definition of true type,
xiv-xv; what constitutes ideal
type, xv-xvi; pure biography,
xvi, 221; beginnings of in
English, 1-2; a work of art,
193-94; interest in, 280; a
difficult form of composition,
280-81; in the future, 286

Birch, Tom, 251

Biryukov, Life of Tolstoi, 250

Bistrici, Vespasiano da, 250

Blakman, John, Collectarium . . .
Henrici VI., 26-27

Bliss, Dr. Philip, 54

Blount, Sir Thomas P., De Re
Poetica, 293

Bodley, Sir Thomas, his auto
biography, 137, 138, 297

Bokenham, Osbern, verse lives of
female saints, 3 1

Borrow, George, Lavengro and
The Romany Rye, 208

Boston, John, 46, 47, 49; Cata-
logus Scriptorum Ecclesiae, 247,
287

^ Bos well, James, xii, 49, 61, 79,
80, 132, 165, 170, 173, 196, 198,
220, 233, 244, 271, 274; not
a prodigy in biography, 112;
his diligence and perseverance,
113-14; his method, 114-18;
and his critics, 118-28; points
out ideal of biography, 129;

and use of documents in bio
graphy, 270; Life of Johnson,
77, 106, 112-29; relation to
Plutarch's work, 118; a work
of culmination, 125; deficien
cies of, 126-27; style of, 127;
influence of, 157-60, 161, 162,
179; 160,161,166-67,169,171,
178, (222, 224, 230, 250, 262,
268, 279; Journal of Tour to
Hebrides, 112, 115, 117

Bradley, Henry, article " Thomas
Dempster," D. N. B., quoted,
135. 289

Bradshaw, Henry, Life of St.
Werburge of Chester, 31

Brooke, Rev. Stopford A., His
tory of Early English Litera
ture, quoted, 9

Broughton, Lord, 205 ; Recol
lections of a Long Life, 206

Brown, P. Hume, on Froude's
Carlyle, 178

Browne, Sir Thomas, 259

Browning, Robert, House, 131

Brydges, Sir Egerton, 57, 158-59,
203, 209, 210, 211, 295; Ima
ginative Biography, 194

Bunyan, John, Grace Abounding,
138, 139, 156, 298

Burdy, Rev. Samuel, Life of
Skelton, 213, 265

Burnet, Gilbert, Life of Bedell,
89; quoted, 96-97; 107, 117

Burr, Anna Robeson, 258, 259;
The A utobiography, 1 40-4 1 ,
151-52. 155, 201, 204-5, 253,
255, 256, 260, 261, 262, 296;
Religious Confessions and Con-
fessants, 201, 255

Burton, Robert, 259

Caesar, 254, 258; Commentaries,

141, 254
Calamy, Edmund, and Reliquiae

Baxterianae, 145, 146, 149; his

autobiography, 149, 257, 300
Cambden, William, History of

Queen Elizabeth, 68
Cambridge History of English

Literature, quoted, 64-65, 82

INDEX

Canning, George, Microcosm,
quoted, 119-20

Capgrave, John, Life of St.
Katharine of Alexandria, 31,
32

Cardan, Jerome, 254, 258, 259,
260; De Vita Propria Liber,
141. 256, 259

Carleton, George, Life of Bernard
Gilpin, xviii

Carlyle, Thomas, 187, 190; re
view of Scott, 162-63, l6 5. J 9 2 ;
Essay on Burns, 179-80; Essay
on Werner, 164, 182; Frederick
the Great, 188, 190-91; Crom
well, 190-92; Life of Sterling,
xii, 171, 180, 192-93, 222, 226,
251, 271 ; Essay on Biography,
250-51 ; Essay on Richter, 281

Carte, Thomas, Life of James
Duke of Ormonde, 91

Cave, William, Scriptorum Eccle-
siasticorum Historia Literaria,
47, 290

Cavendish, George, xviii, xix, 45 ;
Life of Wolsey, 44, 63-66; 67,
71, 214, 269

Cavendish, Margaret, Duchess of
Newcastle, Life of Duke of
Newcastle, 95-96; volume of
London letters, 107; auto
biographical fragment, 138-39

Caxton, William, 27

Cellini, Benvenuto, 256, 260

Century Dictionary, 77

Chambers's Encyclopedia, article
" Biography," quoted, 183,
193, 224

Chambers's Encyclopedia of Eng
lish Literature, quoted, 178

Chandler, F. W., Literature of
Roguery, 85, 86, 100

Characters, xix, xx, 54-56; popu
larity of, 54; explanation of,
54-55; as manifestation of
the biographical spirit, xix,
55; how they differ from
biography, 55-56; how related
to biography and fiction, 56

Chaucer, 25, 28

Chaufepie, j. G. de, 247

Chiabrera, 260

Christie, R. C., article " Bio
graphical Dictionaries," 245

Church, The, and English bio
graphy, i-8, 21-25, 26-27, 29-
37, 45, 240-41

Church, R. W., Saint Anselm, 21

Churchill, W. S., Lord Randolph
Churchill, 219

Churchyard, Thomas, his legend
of Cardinal Wolsey, 38, 39

Gibber, Colley, 99, 100, 300

Cibber, Theophilus, Lives of the
Poets, 57, 295

Clark, Rev. Andrew, editor of
Aubrey's " Brief Lives," 59-60,
81, 303; Life and Times of
Anthony Wood, 186

Clark, Samuel, Lives of Eminent
Persons, 291-92

Coleridge, Samuel, Biographia
Literaria, 109, 203

Collier, Jeremy, Great Dictionary,

293
Collier, J. P., Illustrations of Old

English Literature, 1 38
Collingwood, W. G., Life of

Ruskin, 177
Compilations, Biographical, in

Latin, 287-90
Compilations, Biographical, in

English, 291-96
Contemporary Review, 231
Cook, Edward, Life of Ruskin, 235
Cooke, William, Life of Johnson,

112

Cornhill Magazine, 249
Craik, Sir Henry, Life of Claren
don, 217
Craik's English Prose, quoted,

7L 73-74

Crichton - Browne, Sir James,
New Letters and Memorials of
Jane Welsh Carlyle, 175

Cross, J. W., Life of George Eliot.
xii, 173, 180, 182-83

Cross, W. L., Development of the
English Novel, 56, 86, 156

Curll, Edmund, establishes mod
ern biography, 83, 84

Cynewulf, 1 1

ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

David Copperfield, 228

Davidson, Rev. Thomas, article,
" Biography," quoted, 183,
193, 224-25, 283

Defoe, Daniel, English novel and
biography, 85-86; Robinson
Crusoe, 86, 1 55; Moll Flanders
and Colonel Jacque, 86

Dempster, Thomas, 47; his
autobiography, 1 34-36, 268 ;
Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis
Scotorum, 136, 289

Dictionary National Biography,
175, 194-95,248,249; culmina
tion of national biography,
310; quoted, 26, 39, 90, 135,
161, 195

Digby, Sir Kenelm, Private
Memoirs, 142-44, 156, 297

Dilworth, W. H., Life of Pope, 87

Dimock, J. R, Magna Vita
St. Hugonis, 22-23

Diogenes Laertius, 238, 239, 242,
243. 245

Dobson, Austin, Eighteenth Cen
tury Studies, quoted, io7> 186

Dowden, Edwajrd, Studies in
Literature, quoted, 269

Dryden, John, xi-xii, 68, 82,
92, 127; and translation of
Plutarch's Lives, 77; first
employs word biography, xi,
77, 279; on biography, 77-79

Duntzer, Heinrich, Schiller and
Goethe, 188

Eadmer, Life of Anselm, 21

Earle, John, Microcosmography
(Characters), 54, 55, 56

Early English Text Society, and
lives of saints, 29, 30, 31, 36, 37

Ebers, George, 261

Ecgwin (Egwin), Bishop of
Worcester, reputed first auto-
biographer, 132

Eddius Stephanus, Life of Wil
frid, 6-7, 107, 267

Edinburgh Review, quoted, 150,
183, 185, 197-99, 209-10, 280

Edwards, Rev. Edward, Life of
Raleigh, xvi, 214; and Rev.

Charles Hole, Handbook to

Literature of General Biography,

197, 216, 310; quoted, 214-16,

223-24, 244, 284-85
Einhard, Life of Charles the

Great, 16
Eliot, Charles W., John Gilley,

226, 271
Eloisa and Abelard, Letters of,

107
Elton, Oliver, Survey of English

Literature, 193
Encyclopedia Britannica, quoted,

66, 93, 186-87, 220, 242
Estienne, Robert and Charles,

246
Evelyn, John, 271; Life of

Margaret Godolphin, 269

Felix, hermit of Crowland, Life
of St. Guthlac, 1 1

Fiction and biography, 36-37, 85-
86, 99-102, 106, 194, 228-29,
230; and autobiography, 132,
155-56, 207-8, 228-29

Field, Rev. William, Memoirs of
Samuel Parr, quoted, 128-29

Fielding, Henry, Joseph Andrews
and biography, 99-100; Jona
than Wild as satire on eulo
gistic biography, 100-102; his
commendation of Johnson's
Life of Savage, 105; Tom
Jones, 1 06

Fitzgerald, Percy, Life of Bos-
well, 125, 127, 158; Boswell's
Autobiography, 132, 173

Fitz-Stephen, William, Life of
Becket, 22

Foote, Memoirs of Samuel, 103

Forster, John, a professional
biographer, 183-84; Life of
Dickens, 180-83; editor Ex
aminer, 183; editor Lives
of Eminent British Statesmen,
184; Sir John Eliot, Gold
smith, Landor, Swift, 184

Fox, George, Journal, 147-48, 257

Franklin, Benjamin, 148, 149,
156, 202, 208, 257, 262, 272;
Autobiography, 150-53

INDEX

317

Fraser, Campbell, Biographia
Philosophica, quoted, 190

Freytag, no

Froude, James Anthony, 164,
182, 223, 271; Life of Carlyle,
168-79; highest summit of bio
graphy since Bos well, 168;
has been misjudged, 168 ff. ;
dramatic instinct exhibited,
169-71; chief outcry against,
I 7 I '73I why he did not re
port conversation, 173-74; de
liberate errors in, 174-75;
Professor Masson's complaint,
175, and reluctant praise, 177;
Leslie Stephen's discriminating
judgment, 176-77; testimony
to general truth of the Life,
177-79; hopelessness of set
ting it aside, 178-79; quoted,
191, 192-93, 277; My Relations
with Carlyle, 172-73; 262, 279

Fuller, John, quoted, 51-52

Fuller, Thomas, 58, 268; on early
antiquarians, 48-49; little care
for dates, 53; Abel Redevivus,
first biographical compilation
in English, 50-51, 268, 288,
291; History of Worthies, 51-
53; humour of , 52; 268, 291

Gait, John, 203, 207, 301
Gaskell, Mrs., Life of Bronte, 180
Gayley, Charles Mills, Beaumont

the Dramatist, 227
Gentleman's Magazine, quoted,

IO2-I03, 112, 121

Gery, Robert, 290

Gesner, Konrad, Bibliotheca Uni-
versalis, 246

Gibbon, Edward, proposed Life
of Raleigh, 91 ; and new era
in autobiography, 149; Auto
biography, pieced together, 153;
emphasis on unity in auto
biography, 153-54; 156, 202,
208, 262, 272

Gildon, Charles, 58; English
Dramatic Poets, 54, 293

Giovio, Paolo, 250

Giusti, 260

Gladstone, W. E., on biography,

170. 193. 197

Godwin, William, Life ofChaucer t
185

Goethe, Dichtung und Wahrheit,
261-62

Goldoni, 260

Goldsmith, Oliver, Life of Vol
taire. 88, 92; Parnell, 88, 92;
infuses literary charm into
biography, 92; Nash, 92, 93;
Bolingbroke, 92 ; and generality
of mankind in biography, 105-
106; as probable biographer
of Johnson, 126; Vicar of
Wakefield, 106

Goodwin, C. W., editor Life of
St. Guthlac, ii

Gosse, Edmund, 73; on pane
gyric in biography, 93-94;
History of Eighteenth Century
Literature, 100; on Mason and
Boswell in Modern English
Literature, 128; life of his
father, 221; Father and Son,
228-29; true conception of
biography, 241-42

Greville, Fulke, Lord Brooke,
Life of Sidney, its laboured
style, 92-93; mentioned by
Edward Phillips, 243; excel
lent description of Sidney's
death, 275-76

Guzman, Fenian P6rez de, Gene-
raciones y Semblanzas, 249

Gwynn, Rev. John, editor Book
of Armagh, 6

Hacket, John, Scrinia Reserata :

Memorial of John Williams,

90-91, 97, 107, 117
Hall, Joseph, Characters, 54
Hamerton, P. G., 205, 210-11
Hamilton, N. E. S. A.. Willelmi

Malmesbiriensis, 20
Hammond, Eleanor P., Chaucer :

A Bibliographical Manual, 59
Hancock, A. E., John Keats, 194
Hardy, Sir T. D., Descriptive

Catalogue, 2-3, 5, 20, 24-25,

288, 290

ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

Hare, A. J. C., Story of My Life,

205, 206-7
Hare, Julius, Life of Sterling,

192
Harmsworth Encyclopedia, quoted ,

92
Harper, J. Rainey, The House of

Harper, 190
Harte, Rev. Walter, Life of

Gustavus Adolphus, 91
Harvey, T. Edmund, editor Fox's

Journal, quoted, 147-48
Hawkins, Sir John, on Johnson's

Life of Savage, 105; Life of

Johnson, 112, 113, 114, 121
Hayley, William, Life of Cowper,

1 80-8 1
Hayward, Sir John, Life of

Edward VI. , 68
Herbert of Bosham, 113; Life

of Becket, 22
Herbert of Cherbury, Lord, Life,

142, 257, 297
Heywood, Thomas, design to

write lives of poets, Hierarchy

of the Blessed Angels, and An

A pology for Actors, 58
Hill, George Birbeck, 117, 125,

254, 281
History proper, and biography,

xvi, i, 14, 18, 21, 65, 67, 68, 73,

77, 79-80, 91, 145, 146, 149,

186-87, 190-92, 213-21, 264-65,

278, 279, 285

Hogg, Thomas Jefferson, xii
Holberg, Louis, 261
Hole, Rev. Charles, see Rev.

Edward Edwards
Holinshed, 39, 44, 45
Holland, Henry, 289; Heruologia

Anglica, 51
Home, Dr. George, Olla Podrida,

quoted, 119
Huet, 259
Hume, David, 149, 156, 202, 257,

259, 262, 272
Humphrey, Lawrence, Life of

Bishop Jewell, xviii
Hunt, Leigh, 203
Huyshe, Wentworth, Transla
tion Life of St. Columba, 5

Jacob, Giles, Poetical Register,

56-57, 58, 293-94
Jebb, Mrs., Life of R. C. Jebb,

196-97
Jeffrey, Francis, 150, 197-99,

209-10
Jenkins, Herbert, Life of Borrow,

208
John of Salisbury, Life of Becket,

22

Johnson, Samuel, xii, 49, 106,
113, 118 ff., 130, 156, 158, 166,
173. 196, 198, 220, 233, 234,
271, 272, 274, 281; Life of
Savage, 87, 104-5; on Gold
smith, 92; Idler, quoted, 93,
1 54-5 Si Rambler, quoted, 115;
Lives of the Poets, similar to
Walton's Lives, 75; 102; no-
1 1 ; number of Lives following
within seven years of his death,
1 1 1 - 1 2 ; see also Boswell's Life
of Johnson

Johnstone, John, Memoirs of
Samuel Parr, quoted, 113

Jonson, Ben, Characters, 54

Jortin, John, Life of Erasmus, 91

Juigne-Broissiniere, 246

Kennet, Dr. White, History of
England, 68; quoted, 214

Kingsley, Mrs., Life of Charles
Kingsley, 176, 180

Kippis, Andrew, 251

Knapp, W. I., Life of Borrow, 208

Knox, Vicesimus, Lucubrations,
quoted, 120-21

Kotzebue, 261

L'Advocat, Abbe, Dictionnaire

des Grands Hommes, 247
Lady Morgan, Life of Salvator

Rosa, 280

Lament of Deor, The, 131
Lang, Andrew, Life of Lockhart,

162, 163, 166-67, 222
Langbaine, Gerard, 58; English

Dramatic Poets, 54, 293
Lavater, 261
Leadam, I. S., article " John

Blakman," D. N. B., 26

INDEX

319

Lee, Sir Sidney, Life of Shake
speare, 131, 310; Principles of
Biography, 163, 231, 234, 235,
249, 279, 285; Dictionary of
National Biography, 195, 249;
" At a Journey's End," 249

Leland, John, 47, 49, 50, 58, 89,
247, 267; Commentarii de
Scriptoribus Britanniae, 287-
88, 290

Leopardi, 260

Lermontov, 250

Letters of Lindamira, 107

Letters Written by Eminent Per
sons, etc., 39, 59

Lewes, George Henry, Life of
Goethe, 187-88, 261-62, 266

Life of Charles I., anonymous, 68

Lives of Eminent Antiquaries,
Leland, Hearne, etc., 89

Lloyd, Nicholas, 248

Lockhart, John Gibson, 169, 170,
171, 173, 274; Life of Scotf,
106, 160-67, 1 68. 171, 172, 185,
222, 224, 251, 262, 271, 273,
276, 279

London Magazine, no

Long, George, general biographi
cal dictionary of D. U. K.
Society, 248

Longfellow, Samuel, Life of
H. W. Longfellow, quoted, 89,
130, 203, 282

Lounsbury, Thomas R., 59, 87;
Studies in Chaucer, 28, 49, 185

Lydgate, John, St. Margaret, 3 1 ;
St. Edmund and Fremund, 3 1 ;
connecting link between lives
of saints and The Mirror for
Magistrates, 37

Lyttleton, George Lord, Life of
King Henry the Second, 91

Macaulay, T. B., 57, 178, 180,

193

Machiavel, 242
Macmillan's Magazine, 125
Macray, William Dunn, Chronicon

Abbatiae de Evesham, 132
Mactheni, Muirchu Maccu, Life

of St. Patrick, 5-6, 15

Maitland, Frederic, Life of Leslie
Stephen, 175, 196, 225, 310

Marchand, Prosper, Dictionnaire
Historique, 247

Mason, Rev. William, Life of
Gray, 77, 107-10; use of letters
in, xv, 107-8; makes Gray
his own biographer, 109; ap
pends " Character " to the
Life, 109-10; 117, 122, 128, 130

Masson, David, Carlyle Personally
and in his Writings, 175, 177;
Life of Milton, 186, 190;
DrummondofHawthornden, 186

Medici, Lorenzino de, 260

Memoir of Oldys, 91

Meres, Francis, Palladis Tamia
(Wit's Commonwealth), 58

Middleton, Conyers, Life of Cicero,
91, 107

Mill, J. R., 262

Mill on the Floss, 228

Milne, James, quoted, 226

Minor, Benjamin Blake, The
Southern Literary Messenger,
189-90

Minto, William, Life of Defoe,
85-86

Mirror for Magistrates, The, xix-
xx, 37-38

Misch, Georg, Geschichte der
Autobiographic, 201

Mitchell, Donald Grant, Doctor
Johns, 229

Monluc, 254, 256

Moore, Thomas, Life of Byron,
1 80; failure with, 181-82

More, Sir Thomas, Edward VI.,
Richard III., 68

Moreri, Louis, Grand Dictionnaire,
247

Morley, Henry, English Writers,
132; on Thomas Dempster,
135; Life of Cardan, 188

Morley, John, Rousseau, 188;
English Men of Letters, 196;
Life of Gladstone, 218, 221, 235

Morris, Mowbray, on Froude's
Carlyle, 171

Morris, William, Kelmscott edi
tion Cavendish's Wolsey, 66-67

320

ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

Murray, John, editor Gibbon's
Autobiographies, 153

Murray's New English Dictionary,
for biography and its com
pounds, 77 ; for autobiography,
130

National biography, Dictionaries
of, Swedish, Dutch, Austrian,
Belgian, German, English, 249

Nennius, History of the Britons,

50

Nepos, Cornelius, 238, 242
New International Encyclopedia,

quoted, 234-35
Niebuhr, Berthold G., 187
Nineteenth Century and After, 249
North, Roger, Lives of the Norths,
98-99,126-27,227; and pane
gyric, 98-99, 126-27; and
redivival biography, 227
North, Thomas, and Plutarch,

68, 243, 244
Nouvelle Biographie Ginirale, 247

Oldys, William, on Thomas
Fuller, 52-53; first editor Bio-
graphia Britannica, 57; and
panegyric, 93-95 ; and spirit of
research in biography, 91 ;
Life of Raleigh, 91, 222

Oliphant, Margaret, 205 ; William
Blackwood, 189; her autobio
graphy, 202, 206, 263 ; " The
Ethics of Biography," 231

Olympiodorus, 238

Orme, William, 145, 146

Overbury, Sir Thomas, Char
acters, 54

Palmer, George Herbert, Life of
Alice Freeman Palmer, 235,
265-66, 271

Parker, William Belmont, Life
of Sill, 233

Parr, Richard, Life of Usher, 89,
107, 117

Parr, Samuel, and Hawkins' Life
of Johnson, 113; his own con
ception of writing Johnson's
Life, xii, 128-29

Paul, Herbert, Life of Froude,
172, 179, 223

Paule, Sir George, Life of Arch
bishop Whitgift, xviii

Peck, Francis, 251

Penn, William, 147

Perrin, Bernadotte, on Plutarch,
80

Perry, Rev. George G., St. Hugh
of Lincoln, 23, 24; on Scrinia
Reserata, go, 97

Petit-Dutaillis, Ch., Revue de
Synth&se historique, 310

Petrarch, 255, 260

Phillimore, J. S., Philostratus,
238

Phillips, Edward, Theatrum Poet-
arum, 54, 243, 291; Life of
Milton, 242-43

Phillips, Lawrence B., Dictionary
Biographical Reference, 310

Philostratus, 238, 239, 245

Pindar, Peter (Dr. John Wolcot),
Bozzy and Piozzi, 120

Piozzi, Mrs., Anecdotes of Dr.
Johnson, 112, 113, 114, 117,
123, 124, 126; 120

Pits, John, 47, 48, 49, 267; De
Illustribus Britanniae Scrip'
toribus, 247, 289, 290, 291

Plummer, Rev. Alfred, The
Churches in Britain Before
A.D. 1000, quoted, 2, 36

Plummer, Rev. C., Baedae Opera
Historica, quoted, 15

Plutarch, xL xx, 80, 117, 118,
237-38, 239-40, 241, 242, 243-
44, 249, 252, 279; Parallel
Lives, 16, 68, 71-72, 75, 77, 238

Poole, R. L., and Mary Bateson,
editors Bale's Index, 288

Pope, Alexander, first purely
literary man to be made sub
ject of biography, 86-88

" Portuguese Letters," 107

Pott, J. A., Greek Love Songs and'
Epigrams, quoted, 206

Pushkin, 250

Quaker group of autobiographers,
140-41 ; list of, 298-99

INDEX

321

Quarterly Review, quoted, 131,

170; 245
Querini, 260

Raine, James, Historians of York,
quoted, 7

Rait, Robert S.. Life of Gough,
221-22

Raleigh, Professor Sir Walter,
Six Essays on Johnson, quoted
in regard to Walton's Lives, 74;
Edmund Curll, 83; Johnson's
Lives of the Poets, 102; John
son's Life of Savage, 105;
Boswell's Life of Johnson, 126;
writers in Middle Ages, 133;
The English Novel, 86

Reeves, Dr. William, edition Life
of St. Columba, 4, 5, 16

Richardson, Samuel, Pamela, 99,
106, 108; his "handy letter-
writer," 1 08

Richter, 261

Robert of Gloucester, and verse
lives of saints, 30, 31; his
Metrical Chronicle, 30, 31;
text of his Life of St. Alban,
33-36

Roberts, William, Life of Hannah
More, 162, 1 80

Robertson, James Craigie, Mate
rials for the History of Thomas
Becket, 22

Robinson and Rolfe, Francesco
Petrarcha, 255

Romilly, Sir Samuel, 203

Roper, William, xviii; Life of
More, 61-63; 66, 67, 71, 117,
269, 271

Rousseau, Jean Jacques, Con
fessions, 257-59

Rowan, Frederica, translator
Life of Schleiermacher, 1 88

Rowe, Nicholas, Life of Shake
speare, 86, 305.

Ruffhead, Owen, Life of Pope, 87

Ruskin, John, 204, 226

Saint Cuthbert, Life of, anony
mous prose, 7; anonymous
verse, 32-33

Sainte-Beuve, C. A., Port-Royal,

quoted, 255
Saintsbury, George, 166; History

of English Prosody, 30, 31;

The English Novel, 36, 208;

History of Nineteenth Century

Literature, 161-62
Sand, George, 259
Scott, Sir Walter, Life of Dry den,

1 86; see also unde* Lockhart;

273

Seeley, John Robert, Life and
Times of Stein, 188

Shakespeare, William, King
Henry VIII., 40, 44, 45, 64;
the Sonnets as autobiography,
131; and Plutarch, 244; bio
graphies of, 302-10; text of
Fuller's attempt, 302-3; Au
brey's, 303-4; Langbaine's,
304-5; Rowe's, 305; Gibber's,
305-6; account in Biographia
Britannica, 306-10; Life by
Sidney Lee, mentioned, 131,
310

Shaw, William, Life of Johnson,
112

Shelley, xii

Sheppard, John G., Theophrasti
Characteres, 55

Shiels, Robert, 57

Shotwell, James Thomson, on
scientific method in history,
186-87

Sichel, Walter, Bolingbroke and
his Times, 217-18

Sime, James, Lessing, 188

Smiles, Samuel, John Murray,
189

Smith, Captain Alexander, Lives
of Highwaymen, etc., 104

Smith, D. Nichol, Eighteenth
Century Essays on Shakespeare,

305

Smith, Thomas, letter to Thomas
Hearne, quoted, 39

Smith, Dr. William, Dictionary
of Greek and Roman Biography,
248; and Dr. Wace, Diction
ary of Christian Biography,
248

322

ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY

Southey, Robert, first use of
word autobiography, 130-31;
Annual Review, 180-81, 185;
Life of Nelson, 171, 180

Spedding, James, Life of Bacon,
1 86

Spence, Joseph, and anecdotes,
117

Spencer, Herbert, Autobiography,
210, 225, 259, 262, 273; cul
mination of scientific self-
delineation, 259

Sprat, Thomas, Life of Cowley,
75-77, 86, 94, 95; and pane
gyric, 75-76; and use of
familiar correspondence, xv,
76-77, 108-9

Standard Books (Nelson's), for
bibliography of biography, 310

Stanley, Arthur Penrhyn, Life
of Arnold, 167-68, 171, 176

Stanly, Thomas, 243

Steele, Sir Richard, The English
man, review of criminal bio
graphies, 104

Stephen, Sir James, on Reliquiae
Baxterianae, 145 -46 ; Essays
in Ecclesiastical Biography, on
Boswell's method of biography,
159-60

Stephen, Leslie, 196, 197, 225,233;
and Dictionary of National
Biography, 194-95,249; Studies
of a Biographer, 169, 175, 176,
220-21, 249; on Carlyle in
D. N. B., 175; Hours in a
Library, 211

Sterne, Laurence, Tristram
Shandy, 106; his biography
deferred, 227

Stevenson, Rev. Joseph, The
Church Historians of England,
quoted, 10-11, 12, 13, 15, 17-18,

132-33
Stevenson, W. H., edition of

Asser'sAlfredthe Great, quoted,

12, 13, 14, 16

Stigand, William, Heine, 188
Stilling, 261
Storer, Sir Thomas, Life of

Wolsey (verse), xx, 38-45

Stubbs, William, Memorials of
St. Dunstan, quoted, 14; Wil-
lelmi Malmesbiriensis Monachi
de Gestis Regum Anglorum, 20

Stuckenberg, J. H. W., Life of
Kant, 1 88, 194

Suetonius, 239, 242

Suidas, Lexicon, 245

Symonds, J. A., Life of Michael-
angelo Buonarroti, 188-89

Tacitus, Life of Agricola, 238,
239, 252

Taine, H. A., History of English
Literature, 191-92

Tanner, Thomas, Bibliotheca
Britannico-Hibernica, 47, 287,
290

Temple, William, "Character"
of Thomas Gray, no

Tennyson, Alfred, Maud, 131;
In Memoriam, 193; Merlin
and the Gleam, as his auto
biography, 28 1 ; sonnet as
preface to Becket, 281-82

Tennyson, Hallam, Life of Alfred
Tennyson, 180, 282

Thegan, Life ofLudwig the Pious,

Theophrastus, Characters, 54 ;
edited by John G. Sheppard, 55

Thurston, Herbert, Life of St.
Hugh of Lincoln, 23

Todd, James Henthorn, St.
Patrick, Apostle of Ireland,
quoted, 6

Toland, John, Life of Milton,
97-98

Torrentinus, Hermannus, Eluci-
darius Carminum, etc., fore
runner of biographical dic
tionaries, 245-46, 247

Traubel, Horace, With Walt
Whitman in Camden, xii, 177-
78, 232-33, 233-34

Trelawny, Edward J., xii

Trevelyan, G. O.,LifeofMacaulay,
57, 170, 171, 178, 180, 193,

221

Tuckerman, Bayard, History of
English Prose Fiction, 85

INDEX

323

Tusser, Thomas, 45; autobio
graphy, 136-37, 297

Tyers, Thomas, sketch of John
son's life, 1 1 2

Valery-Radot, Rene, Life of

Pasteur, 250
Valois, Marguerite de, first

woman autobiographer, 256,

260
Vasari, Giorgio, Lives of the

Artists, 250
Venable, William Henry, A

Buckeye Boyhood, 228-29
Vennar, Richard, autobiography,

137-38, 256, 297
Verdier, Anton, Prosopographia

Universalis, 246
Vico, 259
Villani, Filippo, 250

Walker, Hugh, English Essay
and Essayists t 5 5 ; Literature
of the Victorian Era, 162, 164,
167, 179, 182, 188

Walpole, Horace, 142; Cata
logue of Royal and Noble
Authors, 57, 295

Walton, Izaak, 69-75; fir st de
liberate biographer, xvii-xviii,
69; his Lives, 69-75, 262, 269;
influence of Plutarch upon, 72 ;
methods employed, 73 ; use of
correspondence, etc., 73; his
optimism, 73; Wordsworth's
sonnet on the Lives, 74; The
Compleat Angler, xviii, 72, 75;
his digressions, 75; 76; 92, 107,
117, 241, 243, 244, 271, 274

Wanley, u

Ware, Sir James, De Scriptoribus
Hiberniae, 47, 290

Watkins, John, Universal Bio
graphical Dictionary, quoted,
157

Watts, Isaac, Logic, on writing
lives, 213

Wendell, Barrett, English Com
position, quoted, 191

Wharton, Henry, 290

Whibley, Charles, quoted, 64-65

Whitman, Walt, Leaves of Grass,
283; see also Horace Traubel

Widsith, the Far Wanderer, 131

Wilkins, Dr. David, editor Tan
ner's Bibliotheca, 47

William of Malmesbury, 20, 2 1 ;
Gesta. 20; Life of St. Aldhelm,
22; St. Wulstan, 22

Wilson, David, Mr. Froude and
Carlyle, 174

Windelband, Geschichte der Philo
sophic, 255

Winkworth, Susanna, editor-
translator Life and Letters of
Niebuhr, 188

Winstanley, William, Lives of
English Poets, 54, 292

Winter, William, Old Friends,
quoted, 224

Wood, Anthony, and John Au
brey, 59 - 61, 81 - 82, 124;
Athenae Oxonienses, 54, 59,
292; Life and Times of, 186;
268

Wordsworth, William, 45; son
net on Walton's Lives, 74;
Scorn not the Sonnet, 131;
The Prelude, 203 ; prose auto
biography, 203; and pane
gyric, in letter to James Gray,
229-31; 281

Wright, Thomas, Biographica
Britannica Literaria, 20

Wright, Dr. W. Aldis, editor
Metrical Chronicle of Robert of
Gloucester, 30-31

Xenophon, Memorabilia, xii, 122,
237, 239, 241

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